Social Media Exposure, Global Consciousness, and Resiliency of Student Leaders

Abstract

One of the Sustainable Development Goals is to make resilient human settlements. Hence, this study explored what contributes to the resiliency of the builders of communities – the people, and it particularly investigated the resiliency of student leaders in the training grounds. This descriptive-correlational study was conducted at CAPSU Burias Campus during the Academic Year 2023-2024 to determine the social media exposure, global consciousness, and resiliency of student leaders, and ascertain significant relationships among the variables, and differences when grouped according to year level, academic course, number of student organizations joined, and type of leadership position. The study's respondents were 183 out of 350. The respondents’ global consciousness and social media exposure were assessed using researcher-made questionnaires, which both passed content and construct validation by a jury of experts and yielded Cronbach’s Alpha values of .923 and .900 respectively. The Brief Resilience Scale developed by Smith et al. (2008) was adapted to assess resiliency. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and results were interpreted at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that the respondents had a “high level” of social media exposure, a “high level” of global consciousness, and a “moderate level” of resiliency. The social media exposure levels of the respondents significantly vary when grouped according to year level. There are highly significant, positive correlations at different strengths among social media exposure, global consciousness, and resiliency of respondents. Student leaders’ purposeful exposure to social media increases their global consciousness, allowing them to better adapt, respond accordingly and bounce back from difficult situations. These results imply that increasing purposeful social media exposure increases global consciousness, and improves resiliency of the student leaders.