Motivations of facebook, you tube and similar web sites users

The ever increasing popularity-particularly among young users-of personal photo/video sharing websites like youtube and face book deserves to be studied by many aspects. The aim of this study was to explore the motives of the users of this personal photo/video sharing websites. The data was obtained through a survey on a randomly selected sample of seven hundred and twenty eight (728) students of The Selcuk University. The results revealed 7 motives that have effects on the use of photo/video sharing websites like face book, you tube etc. These motivations are, in order of importance: narcissism and self expression, media drenching and performance, passing time, information seeking, personal status, relationship maintenance, and entertainment. The weekly usage frequency of facebook and similar websites by the subjects has been found as the main variable determining the varied importance levels attached to these 7 motivators. In relation to gender, male subjects attached more importance to narcissism and self expression motivators while females preferred information seeking and relationship maintenance. © Ahmet Yesevi University Board of Trustees.