Which App Is Used More Among People (Ages 15–25), Instagram or Snapchat?

Research, especially in science and other practice fields, has informed the bulk of what is known today about the world and how it works. The scientific experiment is the backbone of scientific research and the mother of all scientific theories (Buzbas et al., 2023). Like the cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all living organisms (Buzbas et al., 2023), the scientific experiment is the basic unit of research that yields undisputable results in a logical and controlled manner utilizing approved scientific methods. A scientific experiment succeeds if it can be reproduced without significant variations in the data obtained by the initial and consequent experiments (Buzbas et al., 2023). However, a replication and reproducibility crisis has recently been associated with scientific experiments (Buzbas et al., 2023). The crisis arises from the inability of scientists to clearly outline their research methods and procedures used to develop and carry out an experiment to yield the presented results (Buzbas et al., 2023). Therefore, the adoption of openness in describing scientific experiment materials, methods, and procedures is proposed as the solution to the replication and reproducibility crisis in the scientific community (Buzbas et al., 2023). Consequently, this scientific experiment will envision the principle of openness in describing the proposed materials, methods, and procedures to carry out the proposed scientific experiment.

Research Question: Which app is used more among people (ages 15-25), Instagram or Snapchat?

Hypothesis: Instagram is used more than Snapchat among people aged 15 to 25.

Materials List

1. A working mobile phone with the two applications installed and working.
2. Data collection app downloaded and installed in the mobile phone.
3. Data collection survey

Sample Size and Categorization

The scientific experiment will aim for two hundred participants to constitute the study’s sample size. The sample will be drawn from high school, college, or university students who fit into the selected age bracket for this scientific experiment. The large sample size will help increase the external validity of the experiment’s findings in that they can be applied to explain the usage of mobile applications in the country’s general population of young people.

Procedure

The experiment aims to determine which of the two mobile applications is used more frequently among people aged 15 to 25. The experiment will be carried out in the young people’s everyday lives without requiring the study participants to sit in a laboratory under supervision. The experiment will collect two-fold data using a self-reported survey of approximate usage and weekly hours spent on each mobile application. Also, a live data collection application will be designed and employed on the study participants’ primary mobile phones to collect data in the form of hours and mobile internet data spent browsing each application. The average hours and mobile internet data spent on each application will be calculated to determine which of the two apps is used more among young people aged 15 to 25 years. The live data collection process will proceed from 6 am to 10 pm five days a week.

Independent and Dependent Variables

The hours and mobile internet data spent on each app will be the dependent variables, while the application usage will be the independent variable. The rationale is that the hours and mobile internet data spent differ depending on the study participant’s engagement with either application.

Controlling for Confounding Factors

The experiments seek to investigate the app’s usage while the study participants are in their daily elements, going about their daily routines as normal and natural as possible. Therefore, the study participants will be educated not to change their app usage for the scientific experiment, which will provide fictitious data or manipulate the study’s findings. The study participant should act naturally to avoid skewing the scientific experimental data. A two-day pilot study will be conducted to help provide a baseline usage pattern for each study participant before the scientific experiment begins.

Reference

Buzbas, O. E., Devezer, B., Baumgaertner, B. (2023). The logical structure of experiments lays the foundation for a theory of reproducibility. Royal Society Open Science, 10(3), 221042. https://doi.org/10.1098%2Frsos.221042