THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION ON CONSUMER PURCHASE DECISION MAKING PROCESS

Parallel to the development of the internet, social media has penetrated to every aspect of life. Depending on the frequency of use, social media addiction is also on the rise. Users share a large number of issues in social media and make comments. Based on comments and posts, users can affect others on many issues such as purchase decision making process. In this research, the impact of social media addiction on consumer purchase decision making process was investigated. The survey conducted with 474 social media users residing in Istanbul reached significant results. The results exhibit that Instagram is the most popular social media tool and mainly used to follow up on daily developments. The study findings show that social media addiction level of women is higher than of men. Social media users with higher income have higher level of social media addiction. Participants between 26-35 ages are more active in the purchase decision making process than others. About half of the participants use social media for 1-2 hours a day. Finally, it has been revealed that 54.3% of purchase decision making process can be explained by social media addiction