The Effect of Social Media on Youth Sport Participation: Measuring the Impact of Social Media on the Youth of Jakarta and West Java in Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia, the biggest archipelago country in the world located in South East Asia. A quarter of Indonesia's population consists of youth. A bless to be grateful, because youth is hope of nation. The youth who became the object of this study were youth with the age range of 16-30, in accordance with the Indonesian constitution no. 40, 2009 Article 1 Clause 1 concerning Youth. In addition, it is associated with Generation Y and Z, or commonly called Millennials or Internet Generation. This generation has a tendency to socialize online such as social media, perform online activities such as downloading and uploading entertainment, finding information, and many more.

The development of generation and technology has also given a great impact on the development of sport media. Where the dissemination of sport information on digital platform nowadays plays an important role in the promotion of sport either commercially or not. Promotion of sport which are done by professional clubs, athletes, sport providers, sport communities, even individuals have become a thing to do to attract fans or people to engage in sport participation. These things gave the researcher the idea to examine the extent of social media that influence in sport participation.

This study examined the influence of social media on youth sport participation in Indonesia. This research is done by conducting online survey. The researcher obtained 372 samples targeting youth aged 16-31 years from five cities

Jakarta, Bandung, Bekasi, Bogor, and Depok.

The survey results were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method with Partial Least Square-Path Modeling (PLS-PM) approach. From the results of the analysis, researcher found a significant influence between online sport participation (following sport through social media) to increase youth sport participation. Furthermore, there are four significant effects that influence youths participating in sport through social media. The four effects are motivation, cohesive community, freedom in expressing sport, and sport information exchange. Among the four predictors, "motivation" has the greatest effect. In addition there is an insignificant predictor in the youth sport participation, there is social capital.

The influence of social media also plays an important role in describing the trend of developing on youth sport in Indonesia today. This pattern of youth sport trends can be a reference for government and private sector who are engaged in sport to formulate the right strategy how sport participation can be improved. Finally, the increase in sport participation is expected to create a healthy and strong generation.

Keyword: Effect, Social Media, Youth Sport, Sport Participation