Results (
Thai) 1:
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The project primarily utilized focus group methodology and was
approved by the university IRB. The instructors of five courses
agreed to allow student participation and one researcher presented
the option and study protocol to each course. Students were offered
extra credit to incentivize participation in one of eight focus groups.
One researcher, with experience in group counseling skills, facili-
tated the focus groups which included (a) an introduction and
explanation of informed consent, (b) participant completion of a
short questionnaire including questions relating to demographics,
technology use, and health behaviors, and (c) 50–60 min videotaped
semi-structured focus groups consisting of open-ended questions
about social media use on daily life (i.e., relationships, exercise,
and diet). Participants were specifically asked, ‘‘What, if any, are
the influences of social media on your eating habits’’ and ‘‘What, if
any, are the influences of social media on your exercise habits’’,
but participants also discussed health practices throughout the
focus groups. To protect participant confidentiality codes were used
to pair participant responses with their questionnaire responses.
Additionally, four students (n = 2 male; n = 2 female) volunteered
(no additional incentive) to participate in semi-structured, audio
recorded, 50–60 min interviews to gain a more in-depth perspective
on social media and daily life.
Focus groups and individual interviews were transcribed verba-
tim, any identifiable information was deleted, and all information
relating to health behaviors (i.e., exercise or diet) was extracted
to form the data set for this study. A phenomenological qualitative
approach (van Manen, 1984) was used to capture young adults’
lived experience with social media and health behavior. A human
development scholar and a dietetics scholar independently
immersed themselves in the data and highlighted (van Manen,
1984) commonalities. The two researchers met together to discuss
the commonalities. Three themes were identified and the data was
coded independently line-by-line (van Manen, 1984) resulting in
93% inter-coder agreement. Disagreements were resolved by con-
sulting the data to ensure participant experience was accurately
presented. To increase the trustworthiness of the results a varia-
tion of member checking was employed (Vaterlaus, Beckert,
Tulane, & Bird, 2014). The results were sent to two of the focus
group participants and they were asked to review the consistency
of the themes with their own experience and with their peers’ gen-
eral experience. Both indicated that the themes were represented
with their peers and their own experience with social media and
health behaviors.
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