Ilkogretim Online - Elementary Education Online, 2021; Vol 20 (Issue 1): pp. 1814-1825 http://ilkogretim-online.org doi: 10.17051/ilkonline.2021.01.193 1814|A. S. Arul Lawrence Social Media Usage and Family Relationship among the Tamil Community during COVID-19 Curfew Social Media Usage and Family Relationship among the Tamil Community during COVID-19 Curfew A. S. Arul Lawrence, Assistant Professor, School of Education, Tamil Nadu Open University, Chennai, India, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1474-783X A. John Lawrence, Associate Professor, St.Xavier’s College of Education, Palayamkottai, India K. Saileela, Assistant Professor, Department of Education, Annamalai University, Chidambaram, India https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7308-7440 S. Anantharamakrishnan, Assistant Professor, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Tamil Nadu Open University, Chennai, India P. Chitra, Assistant Professor, School of Journalism and New Media Studies, Tamil Nadu Open University, Chennai, India Abstract- This descriptive-survey study was conducted to find out the relationship between social media usage and family relationship among the Tamil Community during COVID-19 Curfew. A sample of 640 Tamil people was selected by convenience sampling technique. To collect the data, Social Media Usage Questionnaire during Curfew period (SMUQ-CP) and Family Relationship Questionnaire during Curfew period (FRQ-CP) were used which was designed and constructed by the investigators. The alpha coefficient () of both the SMUQ-CP and FRQ-CP were found to be 0.770 and 0.720 respectively. SMUQ-CP consists of 10 items and FRQ-CP consists of 7 items with dichotomous responses i.e. Yes or No. The data was collected with the help of Google forms between 8 th April, 2020 at IST 22:15 (GMT+5:30) and 12 th April, 2020 at IST 17:15 (GMT+5:30). The data were analyzed using the statistical techniques Percentile analysis, mean, standard deviation, t-test, ANOVA, Duncan's multiple range test, Chi-square, and Pearson’s product moment correlation. The finding shows that there is a very weak positive relationship between social media usage and family relationship of Tamil community during the curfew period due to COVID-19. Keywords- social media usage, social media, family relationship, Tamil People, COVID-19, lockdown, corona, curfew period I. INTRODUCTION Tamil community, scattered around the world, speaks one of the oldest and still-alive classical languages. Tamil population around the world is approximately 70 million spread over in 50 countries like south eastern portion of Indian Union (Tamil Nadu), Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Mauritius, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, The United States, and Europe (Sivasupramaniam, n.d). The Sangam literatures, depicting the lives of Tamil community of the ancient times, reveal the value they attributed to family structure, family relationship, marriage, love and affection with kith and kin that were fundamentals to making them live in-tack with stronger social bindings. Modernization, globalization, socialization and social media-impacts have impacted and influenced the lives of Tamil communities to a large extent that the age-old and traditionally transmitted and preserved family values and love-binding relationship are getting diluted as “social media inspires the minds and hearts of the people and have more spectators than other media” E-Search Advisors, n.d.). Social media becomes a part and parcel of modern living and “helps the people spread awareness, support and warnings more quickly especially during crisis time” (Ulvi, Lippincott, Khan, Mehal, Bass, Lambert, Lentz & Haque, 2019). For example, when the cyclone Vardah attacked Chennai in 2015, there was power-cut, water logging, disruption of all official communication channels, and the only social media that came in handy in rescue operations and life-saving passing-on the voice and text message was by through mobiles. In 2017, “Marina Revolution” that shocked the nations setting an example for non-violence stir (Sathish, 2018) by the entire State public and families for the cause of Jallikkattu, a traditional bull taming celebration embedded in Tamil culture, was made possible because of a group of youth gathered at Marina, because of WhatsApp. The role of WhatsApp cannot be underestimated in taking up the social welfare agitations to the frontiers for the cause of India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) project in Theni district, Sterlite Copper unit in Thoothukudi, Pepsi and Coke Companies in Tirunelveli, Cauvery Management Project, Hydrocarbon project in Thanjavur, Nuclear Power Plant in Koodankulam and Tamil Nadu Fishermen Issue (Madhavan, Sakthivel & Krishnakumar, 2017). Because of social media, people got conviction over these issues and opted to protest against those society-affecting issues and stood for justice.