## 4 Results
### Usage of the Internet and Social Media  
Table 3 shows the usage status of the Internet and various social media platforms from 2021 to 2023. The findings reveal that while the time spent on the Internet via smartphones remained relatively stable, the average time spent via computers showed a continuous decline, and the time spent via tablets peaked in 2022. In addition, over the three years, over 99%, 80%, and 70% of the participants used LINE, Twitter, and Instagram, respectively. Over three consecutive years, the usage rates of Instagram and Discord increased significantly. There was a slight increase in TikTok usage and a decrease in Facebook usage. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline
**Demographics** & \begin{tabular}{c} **2021** \\ **(_n_ = 1681)** \\ \end{tabular} & \
\begin{tabular}{c} **2022** \\ **(_n_ = 1292)** \\ \end{tabular} &
\begin{tabular}{c} **2023** \\ **(_n_ = 851)** \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline Internet Usage Time (in hours/month) 1  & \\ Computers & 120.8 & 111.4 & 94.5 \\ Smartphones & 144.2 & 142.9 & 136.7 \\ Tablets & 21.5 & 24.8 & 22.4 \\ LINE Usage Rate & & & \\ Overall & 99.4\% & 98.8\% & 99.2\% \\ Males & 98.8\% & 98.4\% & 99.0\% \\ Females & 100.0\% & 99.1\% & 99.5\% \\ Twitter Usage Rate & & & \\ Overall & 86.1\% & 83.3\% & 83.5\% \\ Males & 86.2\% & 86.3\% & 86.6\% \\ Females & 85.9\% & 80.2\% & 81.0\% \\ Instagram Usage Rate & & & \\ Overall & 70.8\% & 74.1\% & 77.3\% \\ Males & 60.0\% & 63.9\% & 71.6\% \\ Females & 81.1\% & 84.1\% & 83.8\% \\ Facebook Usage Rate & & & \\ Overall & 10.9\% & 6.3\% & 6.0\% \\ Males & 10.9\% & 6.5\% & 6.6\% \\ Females & 9.3\% & 6.2\% & 5.4\% \\ TikTok Usage Rate & & & \\ Overall & 14.0\% & 15.8\% & 18.7\% \\ Males & 11.5\% & 14.1\% & 15.6\% \\ Females & 16.4\% & 17.4\% & 21.3\% \\ Discord Usage Rate & & & \\ Overall & & 21.3\% & 29.7\% \\ Males & 30.9\% & 41.1\% \\ Females & 12.1\% & 18.7\% \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Media usage results. To confirm whether there were any differences due to gender, we conducted a \(t\)-test (independent sample) and discovered the following: First, males accessed the Internet via computers for a longer period than females throughout the three years (2021: \(t\) [1,1582] = 4.89, \(p\)! 0.001, males vs. females = 130.97 vs. 110.73; 2022: \(t\) [1,1225] = 3.26, \(p\)! 0.001, males vs. females = 118.63 vs. 103.91; 2023: \(t\) [1,814] = 2.37, \(p\)! 0.05, males vs. females = 100.71 vs. 88.74). Second, females accessed the Internet via tablets for a slightly longer period than males in 2022 (\(t\) [1,1237] = 1.69, \(p\)! 0.10, males vs. females = 138.73 vs. 146.05). Third, males accessed the Internet via tablets for a longer period than females in 2021 (\(t\) [1,1485] = 3.49, males vs. females = 25.76 vs. 17.20). There were no gender differences between LINE and Twitter concerning social media use. Finally, Instagram and TikTok had more female users, whereas Discord had more male users. We analyzed the average usage time and posting frequency and examined common social media patterns. As the number of participants in 2023 was the smallest among the three years and we needed to confirm that we had a sufficient sample size to conduct the analysis, we used the most frequently used social media patterns in 2023 as our benchmark. The most common social media use patterns (!10% of users) were (1) LINE + Twitter + Instagram (32.6%), (2) LINE + Twitter + Instagram + Discord (14.4%), and (3) LINE + Twitter + Instagram + TikTok (11.2%). The overall percentage of the three major social usage patterns was 58.2%. Therefore, this study focused on the top three patterns. The results are summarized in Table 4.  
Table 4 shows that LINE and Instagram had the longest usage times for Pattern 2, whereas Twitter had the longest usage times for Pattern 3. Additionally, the longer the usage time, the higher the posting frequency of the social media platform among the three patterns. Furthermore, we analyzed users' post content on each social media platform over