Assessment of the Effect of Social Media Tax on Social Media Usage among University Undergraduate Students: A Case Study of Makerere University School of Statistics and Planning.

Abstract

In an effort to determine the impact of social media tax on social media usage among university students, a descriptive study was conducted using a questionnaire administered to a randomly selected sample of 119 students at Makerere university school of statistics. Data was analyzed using SPSS. Descriptive statistics was used at the univariate level, correlation and chi-square tests and one way Anova Eta measure of association were used for bivariate analysis. Linear regression analysis for was used for Multivariate analysis. From the study, majority of the respondents were females (59.8%), third year students (50.4%) and leaved in hostels (48.7%). The average age of the students was 21 years and the average CGPA was 3.66. The average amount of money spent by students on OTT per week was 678.99. majority of the students were BBS and BPOP students and were in their final year. All students had access to social media. WhatsApp and Facebook were the most used social media platforms. WhatsApp with 99.2% responses and Facebook with 82.3% responses. Students used social media majorly for communication with 95% responses and education and research with 72.3%. Majority of the student spent 1-2 hours on social media per day (56.7%). Majority of the students opposed the tax with 71.7% and 91.3% were extremely inconvenienced by the tax. 73.2% used social media very often before the tax while 55.1% of the students used social media often after the tax was imposed. 43.3% paid the tax to access social media, followed by 35.2% used WIFI and 31.5% used VPN to access social media. 66.9% of the students paid tax by themselves and 31.4% students were paid for by parents. The study also revealed that there was no statistically significant association between methods used to access social media and social media usage, and also no statistically significant relation between social media usage and OTT payment. Social media usage strongly affected students’ academic performance. There was a statistically significant relationship between place of residents and OTT payment. There was also no relationship between students’ place of residence and social media usage. There existed a statistically significant relationship between method used to access social media and the amount spent on OTT. Age and students’ performance had no statistically significant relationship.