social media addiction dissertation

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• v.23(6); 2022 Nov

Social Media Addiction, Self-Compassion, and Psychological Well-Being: A Structural Equation Model

Research indicates that social media addiction is associated with several psychological consequences, for example, depression. Distressed individuals tend to devote more time to social media, which leads to impairment of daily life. Interestingly, individuals feeling more compassionate toward them tend to devote less time to social media and feel less psychologically distressed. This research aimed to examine the association between social media addiction and self-compassion and whether it can be further explained through the association of psychological distress.

A sample of 255 Greek adults received a personal invitation sent to various social media platforms. Invitations included a link, which redirected participants to the information sheet and the study questionnaires, namely the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale, the Self-Compassion Scale, and the Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale. Participation was voluntary and no benefit/reward was granted.

As predicted, social media addiction was found to negatively correlate with self-compassion and positively with distress. We used structural equation modeling to examine associations between variables, with psychological distress acting as a mediator. Examination of estimated parameters in the model revealed statistically significant correlations, except for the positive dimensions of the Self-Compassion Scale, which were found to be insignificantly associated.

Conclusion:

Individuals with higher levels of self-compassion tend to report less social media additive behaviors and distress. The extensive use of social media is related to negative feelings and emotions. Self-compassion is a potential protective factor, while distress is a potential risk factor for social media addiction. Intervention programs dealing with social media addiction should consider the role of self-compassion.

Main Points

• Self-compassionate individuals exhibit social media additive behaviors to a lesser degree than non-self-compassionate individuals.
• Only the negative facets of self-compassion (i.e., self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification) actually influence social media addiction, as opposed to the positive ones (i.e., mindfulness, self-kindness, and common humanity), which exhibited nonsignificant relations.
• Psychological distress, namely depression, anxiety, and stress, is significantly associated with social media addiction.
• Psychological distress is a significant risk factor (mediator) for exhibiting social media addiction.

Introduction

The use of the social media (SM) has increased considerably in the recent years; more than 1 billion individuals worldwide use one or more of these services on a regular basis. 1 Social media applications are virtual communities where users can create their personal profile and make it publicly available, interact with real-life friends, and meet new people, based on shared interests. Despite the benefits of SM to everyday life (e.g., social interaction, marketing enhancement, and information processing), problematic use of SM, referred as SM addiction, has also been documented. 2 According to Andreassen and Pallesen, 3 SM addiction is defined as a psychological dependence on SM use and portrays strong and uncontrollable intrinsic motivation, which leads individuals to devote significant amount of time and effort to SM. This disposition impairs important areas of their daily life, like social activities, academic and/or professional commitments, interpersonal relationships, and psychological health. Although SM addiction has not yet been endorsed as a clinical disorder, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), has included internet gaming disorder as an emerging issue for further research. 4 Social media addiction has been linked to behaviors akin to other similar addictive disorders, due to the excessive and additive use of SM apps. 2 To our knowledge, SM addiction remains an unexplored public health issue among Greek adults.

Social Media Addiction as a Significant Psychological Health Issue Worldwide

Social media addiction among adolescents and adults is reported with variations in several countries. Robust epidemiological studies, using nationally representative large-scale samples, reported variations in the prevalence rates of SM intense use in the general population. For example, prevalence rate around 4.5% has been reported among 5961 Hungarians. 5 In Germany, 4.1% of males and 3.6% of female adolescents have been demonstrating SM addiction. 6 De Cock et al 7 reported that 2.9% of the Belgium population is classified as SM addicted. To a similar extent, 11.9% of the 23 532 Norwegian population, aged 18-88 years old, were found to report SM addiction. 3 Moreover, studies that used non-probability sampling techniques have reported even higher prevalence rates of SM addiction among specific age groups. For example, the prevalence rates among 2198 Dutch adolescents aged 10-17 years old are approximately 7%. 8 These rates increase by 18% among young Facebook (n = 667) and YouTube (n = 1056) Malaysian users, under the age of 25 9 and by 29.5% among 1110 students aged 18-25 years old, attending a major university in Singapore. 10

Social media addiction has been found to be associated with a range of negative health outcomes among adolescents. In their systematic review, Seabrook et al 11 found a significant association between the quality of SM interaction and mental health. Particularly, individuals who exhibit excessive use of SM tend also to exhibit symptoms of depression, display problematic interaction patterns, feel more vulnerable to peer victimization, and express feelings of disengagement from daily life. All these behaviors are considered a potential risk factor for suicidal desire. Research has also associated SM addiction with disturbances in sleep behaviors, which lead to bedtime and rising time postponements, 12 increased feelings of social distancing, loneliness and anxiety, 13 deterioration of well-being, and social interaction overload, namely the individual’s engagement in social exchange beyond his/her communicative and cooperative capabilities. 14 Identifying factors associated with SM app interaction is highly warranted as guideline for the design of interventions to reduce SM addiction among adolescents and adults.

Self-compassion and Social Media Addiction

The concept of self-compassion has drawn interest, due to its strong link to psychological well-being. 6 Self-compassion pertains to the understanding, acknowledgment, and transformation of personal suffering through self-kindness, self-acceptance, and mindfulness. The concept of self-compassion is identified by 3 interactive components, all having 2 opposite facets. The first facet includes the dimensions of self-judgment and self-kindness, which refer to one’s ability to be caring and understanding toward the self rather than being harsh and self-critical under negative circumstances. Self-compassionate individuals embrace difficult situations, while self-judgmental individuals become easily upset with themselves. The second facet pertains to common humanity and isolation. Individuals exhibiting feelings of isolation tend to be more prone to social distancing and to personal failure inefficiency. The third facet includes the dimensions of mindfulness and over-identification, which pertain to the awareness and acceptance of one’s painful and stressful experiences in a balanced way. Individuals exhibiting mindfulness pay attention to the present moment and accept their thoughts, feelings, and senses. 15

Self-compassion is reported to enhance emotional well-being, 16 reduce feelings of shame-proneness, 17 increase motivation toward personal growth, mitigate health-related problematic behaviors, such as smoking, 15 and reduce feelings of depression and anxiety. 18 , 19 Self-compassion is also reported to have a regulative causal effect on negative feelings and behaviors; individuals, who embrace life and avoid maladaptive beliefs or negative cognitions are less prone to psychological distressful feelings and behaviors. 20

Self-compassion is also associated with SM app usage. 20 Individuals exhibiting higher levels of self-compassion spend less time on social networking, log in to various SM platforms less frequently, report fewer symptoms of intensity, and generally are more positively inclined to online networking interactions. Research has examined the moderating effect of self-compassion on SM addiction, mostly focusing on the effect it pertains to negative body image perceptions, 21 perfectionistic self-presentations, 22 or specific distressful symptoms, such as depression. 20 Social media app users, who exhibit higher levels of self-compassion, tend to report less symptoms of depression than those with lower levels of self-compassion, thus confirming the mediating effect of the latter on SM addiction and psychological distress.

Psychological Distress and Social Media Addiction

The literature reports that social networking has an effect on psychological distress of the users and can become additive. 2 , 23 Psychological distress is identified by 3 components, namely depression, anxiety, and stress. 24 Depression is associated with feelings of hopelessness, self-deprecation, anhedonia, and lack of interest. Anxiety pertains to the autonomic arousal, and the subjective experience of anxious affect and stress is the persistent feeling of tension and/or the excessive worrying in general life situations. Psychological distress is considered an important risk factor to SM addiction. Preliminary research has associated higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress with Facebook and Instagram excessive use 18 , 25 ; SM-addicted users exhibit withdrawal, poor planning abilities, tolerance to SM app use, preoccupation, impairment of control, and excessive online time.

Psychological distress is reported to have an indirect causal effect on negative feelings and behaviors 18 ; individuals, who feel abandoned, hopeless, and dissatisfied by their lives are more prone to excessive SM exposure.

Research Objective Overview

The present study extends previous research 18 , 20 by exploring the relation between SM addiction and self-compassion to a non-clinical sample of Greek adults. Moreover, we examine whether psychological distress (including all 3 facets, namely depression, anxiety, and stress) moderates the relationship between SM addiction and self-compassion. We therefore hypothesize the following:

• Social media addiction will be negatively related to self-compassion.
• Psychological distress will be positively related to SM addiction and negatively related to self-compassion.
• Psychological distress will moderate the relationship between SM addiction and self-compassion, with stronger association being found by individuals that exhibit lower levels of self-compassion.

Additionally, our research further aims to gather information about the SM habits of Greek adults with regard to SM app usage, which may be considered as directives for healthy SM daily use and assist the design of effective intervention programs for SM addictive behaviors in the future.

Participants

Two hundred fifty-five (n = 255) participants were recruited via snowball sampling procedure. The research was conducted in Greece, and data collection took place between April and May of 2022. Individuals needed to fulfill the study’s inclusion criteria prior to participation. The inclusion criteria were the following: participants should be over 18 years old and should have an active profile account on at least 1 SM app (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Viber, and Pinterest). Individuals who were under 18 years old and/or did not have an active SM account on any SM platform were excluded from participation. Research participants reported a mean age of 27 years (SD = 8.93), ranging between 18 and 60 years; 176 (69%) were females and approximately half of the participants were university students. Missing values were found only in certain demographics (namely age, education, and occupational status). These missing values do not exceed the 2% of the research sample and are not used in any stage of analysis conducted in this study.

Participants responded to a personal invitation posted on various SM platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram), asking them to participate in a study about the impact of SM use, self-compassion, and psychological well-being. Participants were recruited on a volunteer basis through several, different SM online posts, referring to the survey link, posted by the researchers. Participants were also enhanced to invite their friends (sharing similar characteristics) to take part in the research, by sharing the online survey link via their SM profile. The link directed all individuals to the information sheet, which contained research information, along with the first author’s contact details. Prior to participation, individuals provided informed consent for participation; after consent, participants were redirected to the research questionnaires. The survey took approximately 10 minutes for completion. Participation was voluntary, and no benefits or rewards were offered for participating. Participants were also asked to provide demographic information (gender, age, education, and occupation status) and habits of SM use and specifically in which SM they have an active account/profile. Ethical approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of the University of Crete (protocol no. 117/2022).

Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale

The Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS) contains 6 self-report items reflecting core addiction elements (i.e., salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse). 3 Each item is answered with regard to SM experience within a time frame of 12 months and is answered on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very rarely) to 5 (very often). A score of ≥3 is an indication of SM tendency to addiction. Sample item is “How often during the last year have you used SM so much that it has a negative impact on your job/studies?" The original BSMAS is provided in English, and hence adaptation to Greek was required; adaptation was based on the committee translation process. 26 Three bilingual experts translated the original measure into Greek, with the translations subsequently reevaluated by 1 additional expert, who acted as a verifier. Internal consistency of scale was ω  = 0.83. Confirmatory factor analysis showed excellent fit to the data [ χ 2 (9, n = 255) = 20.0, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.98, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = 0.96, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.07, standardized root mean residual (SRMR) = 0.03]. The adapted measure is provided in Appendix 1.

The Self-Compassion Scale

The Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) assesses a person’s feelings of compassion for oneself during times of distress and disappointment. 27 The SCS consists of 26 items and utilizes a 5-point Likert-type scale, with responses ranging from 1 (almost never) to 5 (almost always). Sample items include “I’m tolerant of my own flaws and inadequacies" (i.e., self-kindness) and “When something upsets me, I try to keep my emotions in balance" (i.e., mindfulness). The items included in each subscale, along with reported internal consistency indices, are as follows: self-kindness (5 items; α  = 0.70), self-judgment (5 items; α  = 0.77), common humanity (4 items; α  = 0.72), isolation (4 items; α  = 0.71), mindfulness (4 items; α  = 0.72), and over-identification (4 items; α  = 0.76). The SCS has been adopted to Greek by Mantzios et al. 28 and its reported internal consistency reliability was α  = 0.87.

The Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale

The Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) contains 3 self-report scales designed to measure how frequently individuals experience symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress during the last week. 24 The DASS-21 consists of 21 items, with each subscale having 7 items; responses use a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (did not apply to me at all) to 3 (applied to me very much or most of the time). Sample items include “I tended to over-reach to situations" (stress) and “I felt that life was meaningless" (depression). The DASS-21 has been adopted to Greek by Lyrakos et al. 29 and the scale’s overall internal consistency reliability was Cronbach’s α = 0.79.

Data analysis was conducted using Jamovi Statistical Computer Software version 2.2 (The Jamovi project; Sydney, Australia). Descriptive statistics and non-zero correlations among all variables were examined. Data normality was evaluated with the Shapiro–Wilk normality test; significance values > .05 indicate normally distributed data. 30 Confirmatory factor analysis was initially conducted to examine the adequacy of the measurement for all constructs under investigation. Structural equation modeling was then performed to examine the fit of the hypothesized structural model. 31 To examine the mediation effect of psychological distress on self-compassion and SΜ addiction, a bootstrap procedure was used to test the indirect effect 32 using a bias-corrected confidence interval of 2000 resamples. To evaluate the proposed model, the method of the diagonal weighted least squares estimator was used, which is considered to outperform other relevant estimators (e.g., maximum likelihood estimator) and is considered fairly accurate with small size samples, non-normality, and few model parameters. 33

To assess model adequacy, several goodness-of-fit indices have been assessed and reported in combination, such as the χ 2 fit index, the CFI, the TLI, the RMSEA, and the SRMR. 34 A nonsignificant P -value indicates good fit for the χ 2 fit index. 34 However, chi-square is sensitive to sample size (with smaller samples indicating statistically significant outputs); thus, the calculation of the chi-square index to the respective degrees of freedom ( χ 2 /df) is preferred, with a ratio of ≤2 indicating good fit. In addition, CFI and TLI range between 0 and 1, with values >0.90 indicating adequate fit. A value below 0.05 in RMSEA and SRMR indicates an excellent fit, with values ranging from 0.05 to 0.08 indicating a reasonable fit. 33 , 35

In terms of SM use, 12 (4.7%) participants reported that they spend ≥5 hours on SM apps online per day and 186 (73.1%) use more than 5 different SM platforms daily (see Table 1 ). The most frequently reported SM platforms are the Facebook/Messenger and the Instagram (98.0% and 88.2% respectively), followed by the Viber (78.0%), the YouTube (67.5%), and the Pinterest (36.9%). Frequencies and percentages of age, educational level, occupational status, and the number of SM platforms use are presented in Table 1 . Due to the snowball sampling procedure used for data collection, participants are unequally distributed in accordance to their age group and their educational level.

Frequency Table for Demographic and Social Media Habits

Focusing further on the SM addiction among Greek adults, the assessed mean level of the BSMAS in our sample was estimated and perceived as relatively low ( M  = 10.2, SD = 4.21, range: 6-25). Although the Greek version of the BSMAS has not yet been examined for having critical cutoff scores on SM addiction, we employed the critical cutoff scores suggested by Andreassen et al 12 These cutoff scores were reached by a relatively low percentage of the Greek sample (polythetic scoring: 2%; monothetic scoring: 16.1%), which indicates low levels of SM addiction.

Table 2 presents the correlations between all variables included in the study. Results revealed a negative correlation between SM addiction and self-compassion. Findings also revealed a positive association between psychological distress and SM addiction and a negative relation between psychological distress and self-compassion, thus confirming our first and second research hypothesis.

Correlations Between Variables Included in the Study

n = 255; BSMAS, Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale; DASS-21, Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale; SCS, Self-Compassion Scale.

* P < .05, ** P < .01, *** P < .001.

The full structural equation model was put to the test, to examine the mediation effect of psychological distress between self-compassion and SM addiction. The model revealed a good fit to our data [ χ 2 (87) = 177, P < .001, CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.94, SRMR = 0.08, RMSEA = 0.06 (CI 0.05-0.08)], yet the standardized factor loadings for the SCS variables were found to be statistically nonsignificant. Inspection of the subscales’ correlations revealed insignificant criterion correlations only for the positive dimensions of the self-compassion variable. Specifically, the subscales of mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness exhibited very low or insignificant correlations to psychological distress and SM addiction ( Table 2 ). The standardized path coefficients of the structural model are presented in Figure 1 .

Structural equation model of self-compassion, psychological distress, and social media addiction. * P < .05, ** P < .001.

According to Neff, 27 the SCS examines 3 basic and interactive components, which pertains 2 opposite dimensions. Results revealed criterion correlations in the expected direction only for those dimensions/subscales that followed a negatively skewed response format (self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification). In addition, insignificant correlations were found for the positively skewed response subscales, namely the self-kindness, the common humanity, and the mindfulness subscale. Therefore, it was decided to test a modified structural equation model, including only the negatively keyed SCS facets. This modified measurement model yielded a significantly better fit to our data [ χ 2 (51) = 35.1, P < .001, CFI = 1.00, TLI = 0.98, SRMR = 0.05, RMSEA = 0.00 (CI 0.00-0.03)] than the original SEM.

The tested mediational model predicted SM addiction. Table 3 presents the factor loadings of the modified structural equation model; standardized factor loadings ranged from 0.46 to 0.94 and were all statistically significant at P < .001. Self-compassion was found to have a significant direct effect on SM addiction and a significant indirect effect through psychological distress (see Figure 1 ). In sum, psychological distress is found to negatively correlate with self-compassion and positively relate to SM addiction and is perceived as a mediator among those concepts.

Unstandardized and Standardized Loadings for the Measurement Model (Including only the 3 Negative Subscales)

The present study investigated the link between SM addiction, self-compassion, and psychological distress, using data from Greek adults. As proposed, higher levels of self-compassion were associated with lower levels of SM app usage. These findings give prominence to the first hypothesis, since self-compassion strengthens individuals from expressing SM addiction and/or mental health problems. 18 , 36 Individuals who demonstrate higher levels of self-compassion tend to spend less time on SM apps and overall feel healthier.

Furthermore, our research findings indicated that psychological distress appeared to have an effect on SM addiction; individuals feeling highly distressed also tend to report higher levels of SM app addiction. This positive inclination to SM addiction was significant for all 3 negative psychological states, namely depression, anxiety, and stress. The findings from our study are similar to those reported from previous researches 2 , 18 ; prolonged exposure to SM platforms is associated with certain negative psychological consequences. Nonetheless, our findings expand our understanding on SM addiction, since results are not focused on a specific SM platform, or on a single SM user profile. Participants of this study were asked to report general tendencies toward all SM indiscriminately; therefore, inferences can be made from a general perspective.

Exploration of the mediation effect between the full spectrum of self-compassion, SM addiction, and psychological distress failed to explain how self-compassion enables a positive relation. Interestingly, examination of certain facets of self-compassion revealed that the concept’s negative counterparts, namely self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification, exhibit strong associations between SM addiction and psychological distress; in conjunction with previous findings, 18 only these negative facets are moderated by psychological distress.

With regard to our additional objective, current findings allow only statements about tendencies of Greek population toward SM addiction. Although the adopted BSMAS has not yet been examined for having critical cutoff scores on SM intensity, the critical cutoff scores suggested by Andreassen et al 12 were used. These cutoff scores were reached by a relatively low percentage of the Greek sample, indicating low levels of SM addiction. Intervention programs, promoting psychological well-being and coping with SM addiction, need to focus on the control, the acceptance, and the regulation of the self. 15 Our research findings shed light on the unexplored behavioral patterns regarding the use of SM and self-compassion, by emphasizing on the negative dimensions of self-compassion. The emphasis on the negative facets may be highly beneficial for establishing new intervention programs. For example, individuals who get easily upset with themselves during difficult life situations (or generally get easily stressed) tend to reveal symptoms of SM addiction more frequently. Conversely, individuals who understand how to fairly and honestly judge the time they spent on SM may be more aware of their potential problematic behavior and more stimulated to overcome such negative behaviors by themselves. Likewise, when individuals exhibit feelings of isolation to a greater extent, they feel more prone to get socially distanced and lessen the time they spend on SM, or effectively manage social interaction overload. 14 On the contrary, individuals who feel more acceptive of their thoughts and feelings are prone to excessive SM behavioral patterns and increase their possibility for expressing SM addiction.

The results from the present study should be interpreted in light of certain limitations. Firstly, only self-reported measures were used. Consequently social desirability is an issue that needs to be further addressed; results may have underestimated the prevalence of SM addiction among Greek adults. Secondly, the data used are not representative of the Greek population; males are underrepresented, and age, occupation status, and gender are presented unequally. It should also be noted that a large number of individuals use SM apps outside the range of the age or the occupational status included in our study. Thirdly, participants in this study have been recruited from self-selected processes, through snowball sampling procedures. Therefore, inferences on individuals’ SM additive behaviors may not be representative of the broader Greek population. Finally, research design did not account for information regarding problematic smartphone usage. 37 Smartphone and SM addiction are highly overlapping, since smartphones are predominantly used for social networking purposes. This lack of distinction between the smartphone and the SM addiction confounds our findings and affects the generalizability of our results.

Overall, the findings add to the existing literature by examining the relation and the mediation effect between self-compassion, SM addiction, and psychological distress. Results showed that psychological distress is a potential risk factor, while self-compassion is a potential protective factor for SM addiction. The mediating role of self-compassion is not easily endorsed, and more complex patterns of interventions toward the confinement of SM addiction need to be further established. Strengthening self-compassion and psychological well-being are potentially important components to be considered in social network addiction interventions targeting adults.

Ethics Committee Approval: Ethical committee approval was received from the Ethics Committee of the University of Crete (Approval No: 117/2022).

Informed Consent: Written informed consent was obtained from all participants who participated in this study.

Peer-review: Externally peer-reviewed.

Author Contributions: Concept – E.M.; Design – E.M., M.K.; Supervision – E.M.; Funding – E.M., M.K., C.T.; Materials – E.M.; Data Collection and/or Processing – E.M.; Analysis and/or Interpretation – E.M., C.T.; Literature Review – E.M.; Writing Manuscript – E.M., C.T.; Critical Review – E.M., M.K.

Declaration of Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Funding: The authors declared that this study has received no financial support.

Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale Greek version

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

The association between depression and addictive social media use during the COVID-19 pandemic: The mediating role of sense of control

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Clinical Psychology, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

Roles Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Department of Psychology, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, Department of Psychology, Menoufia University, Shebin El-Kom, Egypt

• Zahir Vally, 
• Mai Helmy, 
• Louis Fourie

• Published: September 8, 2023
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291034
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

COVID-19 precipitated a plethora of mental health difficulties, particularly for those with pre-existing mental health concerns such as depression or addictive tendencies. For some, the distress that emanated from the experience of the pandemic prompted excessive engagement in the safety of online interactions on social media. The present study examined whether variation in individuals’ sense of control explained the association between depression and addictive social media use.

A sample of 1322 participants from two Middle Eastern nations provided data collected during the peak of the pandemic from February to May 2021. A combination of convenience and snowball sampling were used to recruit and collect data from college-aged students enrolled at two universities in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, respectively. This study adopted a cross-sectional design in which participants completed a self-administered survey that consisted of measures that assessed depressive affect, sense of control, and addictive social media use.

Depression was significantly and positively associated with addictive SMU. Sense of control was negatively related to both depression and SMU and significantly mediated the association between these two variables (β = .62, SE = .03, 95%CI .56, .68).

This study identified a potential protective variable that could be targeted by psychological treatment to ameliorate the potential onset of addictive SMU in individuals with depressive symptoms under conditions of immense psychological distress such as a worldwide pandemic.

Citation: Vally Z, Helmy M, Fourie L (2023) The association between depression and addictive social media use during the COVID-19 pandemic: The mediating role of sense of control. PLoS ONE 18(9): e0291034. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291034

Editor: Sally Mohammed Farghaly, Alexandria University Faculty of Nursing, EGYPT

Received: January 24, 2023; Accepted: August 20, 2023; Published: September 8, 2023

Copyright: © 2023 Vally et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic exacted substantial changes to the daily lives of all individuals [ 1 ]. Government-instituted measures designed to curtail the spread of the disease included mandatory curfews, stay-at-home orders, the wearing of face masks, travel blockades, the closure of schools, businesses, and workplaces, and a general suspension of public life [ 2 , 3 ]. Despite life now having begun to slowly return to a sense of normalcy, a plethora of research has demonstrated that the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in substantial detrimental effects on individuals’ mental health, the long-term effects of which remain unclear at present [ 4 – 6 ]. Moreover, if future pandemics were to arise, an understanding of the factors that might serve a protective function against the onset, and potentially mitigate the exacerbation, of unfavourable mental health outcomes would be particularly beneficial to both researchers and clinicians.

Addictive social media use

A commonly reported consequence of the requirement to engage in ‘spatial distancing’ was the precipitous rise in the excessive use of technology and social media platforms. As individuals were unable to engage with others in real life, most, if not all, interactions were shifted to the online realm, leading to a notable increase in the use of social media platforms in comparison to pre-pandemic rates [ 7 , 8 ]. Addictive social media use (SMU), whilst not presently being a recognised diagnostic construct, reportedly results in considerable symptomology and social dysfunction [ 9 ]. It is characterised by a close emotional bond to the device and/or the platform, individuals experience an immense need to stay connected, and may experience withdrawal symptoms when not connected or when prevented from using the device/ platform [ 10 ]. Griffiths [ 11 ] contends that addictive SMU consists of the following core elements: salience (ruminative and persistent thoughts about using social media), tolerance (progressively increasing periods of usage time is required to garner similar affective experiences from the platform’s use), mood modification (using social media precipitates positive emotions and/ or combats negative emotions), relapse (unsuccessful attempts to decrease use of the platform), withdrawal symptoms (feelings of discomfort when not using social media), and conflicts (the individual’s SMU results in interpersonal difficulties with others).

A substantial body of cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence attests to the contention that excessive and addictive SMU is associated with a range of unfavourable physical and mental health difficulties [ 12 , 13 ]. Despite the contentions of some that caution should be exercised to avoid pathologizing typical behaviours that are characteristic of contemporary society and consequently overstate its prevalence [ 14 – 16 ], the evidence in support of the potential deleterious consequences of excessive SMU is overwhelming. Psychological distress, depression, anxiety, and insomnia have consistently been shown to be associated with addictive SMU when assessed cross-sectionally and this is evident across Asia, Europe, and North America [ 6 , 10 , 17 – 19 ].

Additionally, when assessed longitudinally, baseline levels of addictive SMU appear predictive of psychopathological constructs (i.e., depression, insomnia, suicidal ideation) at ensuing follow-up assessment points. For example, in Germany, longitudinal research has shown baseline levels of additive SMU to be positively associated with the presence of depressive symptoms at six weeks follow-up [ 20 ]. Two further studies have demonstrated that addictive SMU at baseline was associated with suicidal behaviour twelve months later [ 21 , 22 ]. This is evident both in samples of individuals with pre-existing mental health difficulties [ 23 ] as well as college-aged participants drawn from a community sample [ 18 ].

Sense of control and positive mental health

The presence of positive mental health mitigates the potentially detrimental effect of negative life experiences and acts as a protective mechanism reducing risk for the development of mental health difficulties [ 24 – 27 ]. This mitigating effect may be the result of the elevated sense of control and greater degree of resilience that appears to accompany the presence of positive mental health [ 25 , 28 ]. Seligman [ 29 ] proposes that an elevated level of sense of control is essential for the development of positive mental health. Conversely, where individuals exhibit diminished sense of control, amplified helplessness is likely, and individuals will espouse a desire to regain the perception of control [ 30 ]. Such individuals tend to employ the use of dysfunctional coping strategies which may invariably further compound their mental health difficulties. This has been shown to be the case for individuals with substance abuse difficulties and those who engage in excessive technology use such as gaming [ 15 , 31 ].

There is further evidence that some individuals who experience a low sense of control may resort to seeking control in alternate contexts such as via online activities and interactions [ 32 ]. This behaviour is often reinforced, and may become more intensive and excessive, as it tends to produce positive emotions and commensurately reduces the experience of negative emotions, at least in the short-term (e.g., diminished loneliness, depression, anxiety and greater self-reported life satisfaction and wellbeing) [ 7 , 10 , 33 , 34 ]. However, in the long-term, the individuals’ excessive engagement in online interactions is likely to progress and contribute to the development addictive tendencies. The Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model of addictive behaviour contends that a multitude of psychological and neurobiological factors collectively and cumulatively contribute to the onset or mitigation of addictive tendencies [ 35 ]. Thus, it is imperative that studies investigate the range of factors that might moderate and/ or mediate this association and their potential interaction.

It is likely that unhealthy manifestations of mental health such as depression or, indeed, factors that are beneficial for mental health fall within the parameters of the I-PACE model. This contention is supported by the following evidence. A wealth of evidence has shown that depression is positively related to addictive SMU [ 17 , 20 , 23 ]. Additionally, sense of control has also been demonstrated to be related to addictive SMU [ 28 , 32 , 36 ]. Moreover, Seligman [ 29 ] proposed that elevated levels of sense of control can have an analgesic effect on mental health outcomes. In other words, sense of control mitigates poor mental health and contributes to positive mental health. This is a contention for which there is much substantiating evidence [ 37 – 40 ].

Research conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic also provides further substantiating evidence of this relationship. Where individuals’ sense of control was assessed, this was shown to be positively associated with baseline levels of positive mental health assessed before the onset of COVID-19 [ 28 ]. Additionally, where individuals reported the perception of a low level of control in relation to their experience of the pandemic, they were also shown to exhibit elevated risk for addictive tendencies towards technology [ 36 ]. Considering the demonstrated associations between these variables–mental health difficulties, sense of control, and addictive SMU–and the proposition of the I-PACE model, it is likely that variations in individuals’ sense of control during the midst of the pandemic would mediate the association between depressive symptoms and the onset of addictive SMU.

Theoretical framework

The theoretical model that provides the most comprehensive and appropriate conceptualization of excessive SMU is the I-PACE model [ 35 ]. The model proposes that a number of categories of risk and prognostic factors, which the model separates into various categories, collectively impact the onset of individuals’ excessive engagement with devices and/or technologies. First, the personal determinants category comprises factors related to genetics, biology, personality characteristics, psychopathological variables, and the motives for engaging in excessive use. Second, the risk and resilience category, which Brand et al. [ 35 ] describe as factors that are representative of the individual’s response to the personal determinants factors, comprises cognitive and attention biases, coping strategies, expectancies, craving, and variations in inhibitory control.

The model further contends that the risk and resilience factors likely operate as mediators and moderators in the relationship between the personal determinants factors and the consequent onset of excessive SMU. They may either serve to amplify the effect of the personal determinants factors, and thus increase the likelihood of excessive SMU occurring, or they may serve a protective function and attenuate the resultant effect [ 35 ]. Given this model’s propositions and the evidence of the demonstrated associations between the study’s principal variables, sense of control would be regarded as a resilience factor and thus, if the model’s contentions are valid, would likely serve to diminish the effect of depression on the onset of addictive SMU.

Aims and hypotheses

This study aimed to examine the association between depressive symptomology and addictive SMU during the COVID-19 pandemic and, moreover, whether this proposed association would be mediated by sense of control. The following hypotheses were proposed. It was hypothesized that depression would be positively associated with addictive SMU Hypothesis 1a (H1a). It was also predicted that sense of control would be negatively associated with both depression (H1b) as well as addictive SMU (H1c), respectively. Finally, it was predicted that sense of control would mediate the association between depression and addictive SMU (H2).

Materials and method

Study design.

This study employed a cross-sectional design in which participants, who agreed to participate, completed a survey. This study’s conduct was approved by the Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee at the United Arab Emirates University (Reference number: ERS_2020_6102).

Procedure and participants

This study employed a combination of convenience and snowball sampling approaches to collect data from college-aged participants during the Spring semester of the 2020/2021 academic year with participants drawn from enrolled students at two large federal universities–Menoufia University in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates University in the UAE. Data collection occurred at the peak of the pandemic in both these locations. At that time, in the UAE, strict lockdown measures were in place, universities, schools, and non-essential workplaces were closed with work-from-home being commonplace. Conversely, in Egypt, a less stringent approach was common. Wearing masks in public was not strictly enforced and schools and universities remained operating face-to-face.

The potential sampling frame comprised approximately 2000 participants, these were students who were enrolled in the classes taught by the two principal investigators (ZV and MH) across the two campuses (the targeted classes included students from clinical psychology, abnormal psychology, cognitive psychology, research skills, and creative thinking skills). Students who met the inclusion criteria (i.e., aged at least 18 years old and self-reported as a current user of at least one social media platform) were invited to participate by completing the electronic survey. Advertisements about the study were also placed on physical notice boards and posted to social media accounts typically used by this group of students. The students in the targeted classes were also encouraged to circulate the electronic link to the study’s information and the survey in their social groups, thus introducing a snowball approach to the collection of data.

The link that was made available to participants enabled completion of the electronic survey. The first page displayed an informed consent form which provided background information about the study and principal investigators’ contact details. It also outlined the rights of the participants and the responsibilities of the research team (e.g., that participation was voluntary, issues of confidentiality, the right to withdraw without penalty, and measures employed to secure participants’ data). Written informed consent was obtained before proceeding to commencement of the survey. Data collection occurred from February to May 2021.

Assessment instruments

Demographics..

Participants self-reported their age, gender, relationship status, and registration status (i.e., fulltime, or part-time).

Depression.

The depression subscale of the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales 21 (DASS-21) [ 41 ] was used to measure depressive affect over the preceding 7 days. This subscale consists of 7 items to which participants respond using a 4-point Likert scale (0 = did not apply to me at all, 3 = applies to me very much or most of the time). Example items include “I felt that I had nothing to look forward to” and “I felt down-hearted and blue”. Higher total scores are indicative of greater levels of depressive affect. The DASS-21 is one of the most prevalently employed measures of depressive and anxious affect and has been shown to be psychometrically valid and reliable across a wide range of languages and cultures including with Arabic-speaking participants [ 10 ]. This Arabic-language version typically demonstrates internal consistency values that range from .88 to .93 [ 42 – 44 ]. In the present study, the Cronbach’s α value was similarly high (.81).

Sense of control.

The 2-item scale first developed and employed by Brailovskaia and Margraf [ 37 ] was used to assess sense of control. The two items are: “Do you experience important areas of your life (i.e., work, free-time, family, etc.) to be uncontrollable, meaning that you cannot, or barely can, influence them?” and “Do you experience these important areas of your life as unpredictable or inscrutable?”. Responses to the items are scored using a 5-point Likert scale and higher total scores are indicative of higher sense of control. The measure’s Cronbach’s α scores have ranged from .79 to .91 [ 32 , 36 , 45 ]. In the present study, internal consistency was .82.

Addictive social media use.

Addictive SMU was measured using the 6-item Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS) [ 9 ]. The items of the scale measure the 6 principal component features of addiction proposed by Griffiths [ 11 ], namely, salience, tolerance, mood modification, relapse, withdrawal, and conflict. Responses to the items are scored using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = very rarely, 5 = very often). Possible total scores can range from 6 to 30 and higher total scores are indicative of more substantial addictive tendencies to SMU. Example items include “I feel an urge to use social media more and more” and I spend a lot of time thinking about social media or planning how to use it”. The scale has a demonstrated unidimensional factor structure and meets a variety of indices indicative of reliability and validity [ 46 , 47 ]. In the present study, internal consistency was equally high (α = .80).

Data analysis.

Descriptive results with regard to the demographic characteristics and the principal variables are reported using means and standard deviations for continuous variables or counts and percentages for categorical variables. As a preliminary investigation of the potential relationships between depression, sense of control, and addictive SMU, a correlational matrix was computed, the results of which are reported using Pearson’s r values and their corresponding significance values. A mediation model was then analysed in which depression was specified as the predictor variable, sense of control as the hypothesized mediator, and addictive SMU as the outcome variable. Gender was specified as a covariate as evidence suggests gendered differences in the use of social media platforms is common.

In the proposed mediational model, path a indicates the relationship between depression and sense of control and path b represents the association between sense of control and addictive SMU. The indirect effect (ab) is reflective of the combined effect of both paths a and b. The association between depression and addictive SMU, the total effect, is represented as path c, whilst the relationship between these two variables (the predictor and outcome) following inclusion of the proposed mediator (sense of control), is indicated as path c’ (the direct effect). All analyses were conducted using SPSS Version 26 and the mediation analyses were conducted using the PROCESS macro version 3.5 ( www.processmacro.org/index.html ) [ 48 ]. The results of all analyses were regarded as statistically significant with a p value of .05.

Descriptive and correlational results

The final sample consisted of 1322 participants whose age ranged from 18 to 32 years (M = 19.50 years, SD = 1.54). The vast majority of the sample were fulltime students (96.4%) while 2.6% were part-time students also simultaneously engaged in minimal employment and 1.0% of the sample were recent graduates from the university but still unemployed at the time of data collection. The sample was primarily comprised of females (75.4%) and single individuals (90.6%). The majority of the sample (n = 1036, 78.4%) were from Egypt and the remaining 21.6% of the sample (n = 286) were from the UAE. These demographic variables did not significantly differ between the two country’s samples (see Table 1 ).

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291034.t001

The computation of bivariate correlations between the three principal variables revealed that depression was significantly and positively associated with addictive SMU (r = .47, p < .001) and negatively associated with sense of control (r = -.11, p < .001) but sense of control and addictive SMU were not significantly related (r = .007, p > .05). A similar pattern of results was evident when the data for each country was examined. Table 2 illustrates the results of the computed correlational matrices (total sample and one for each of the UAE and Egyptian samples).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291034.t002

Mediation results

A mediation analysis was computed, and this revealed the following. The overall model was significant (F(2, 1319) = 182.526, R 2 = .217, p < .001). Path a was significant, depression was significantly associated with sense of control (β = -.04, SE = .01, 95%CI -.06, -.02) and so too was path b, sense of control was significantly associated with addictive SMU (β = .23, SE = .09, 95%CI .05, .40). Moreover, the total effect of depression on addictive SMU was also significant (β = .61, SE = .03, 95%CI .55, .67) and this association remained significant when the indirect effect of the mediator was examined. Sense of control emerged as a significant mediator of the association between depression and addictive SMU (path ab) (β = .62, SE = .03, 95%CI .56, .68). Fig 1 depicts the results of this mediation analysis and illustrates the total, direct and indirect effects.

Path a denotes the association between depression and sense of control; path b indicates the path between sense of control and addictive SMU; path c (the total effect) is reflective of the basic relationship between depression and addictive SMU; and path c’ (the direct effect) denotes the link between depression and addictive SMU following inclusion of the mediator. SMU = social media use.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291034.g001

This study sought to examine the potential mediational role of sense of control in the relationship between depressive symptoms and addictive SMU within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Doing so was highly pertinent given the evidence that rapidly emerged during the initial stages of the pandemic that rates of technology use and, in particular, excessive and problematic manifestations of SMU exponentially proliferated [ 49 ]. The results of this study revealed that depression was significantly and positively associated with addictive SMU (in confirmation of H1a). Sense of control was negatively associated with both depression (confirming H1b) and addictive SMU (confirming H1c). Moreover, sense of control significantly mediated the association of depression with addictive SMU (in confirmation of H2).

These results suggest that depressive symptoms may represent a risk factor for the development of addictive tendencies towards SMU. Our results produced statistically significant associations at the correlational level across all potential comparisons (i.e., the total sample and each of the country-specific subsamples) and resulted in statistically significant associations within the context of the mediation analysis. This provides additional substantiating evidence for the contentions of the I-PACE model and is in line with the findings of preceding empirical evidence [ 17 , 18 , 35 , 50 ]. Specifically, where individuals experience depressive symptoms, this appears to elevate the degree of risk for the consequent onset of addictive SMU. Individuals may indeed actively seek out social media platforms and the access to information (about their experienced difficulties) that it facilitates and other individuals, in the online realm, can be readily and easily accessed from whom to elicit support and emotional comfort, thus increasing dependence and excessive use of the platform and device [ 17 , 23 ].

Additionally, one of the potential mechanisms that creates the association between these variables appear to be the precipitous impact that depressive symptoms exact on individuals’ sense of control. This suggestion appears sound when considered within the context of preceding research as well as the current understanding of depressive illness. Specifically, a multiplicity of research confirms that individuals with depression hold self-denigrating beliefs centred around their own lack of capacity to successfully manage the demands and responsibilities of their lives [ 51 – 53 ]. They frequently believe that their lives and their futures are out of their control and commensurately do not possess the capacity to execute some form of control [ 54 , 55 ]. This is one of the principal contentions on which the cognitive model of depression is based [ 54 ]. Additionally, previous research also indicates that an elevated sense of control predicts lower levels of psychological distress, greater adaptation to stressful life events (e.g., transition to parenthood), and buffers the impact that multiple stressful life events have on the consequent development of mental health difficulties such as depression [ 38 , 56 , 57 ]. Thus, the evidenced association of depression and sense of control in this study appears to concur with preceding literature.

Our results also concur with existing research by highlighting a potential target for psychological intervention where individuals are assessed to be at risk for the onset of addictive SMU. Interventions that have specifically targeted the enhancement of individuals’ sense of self-control and their self-efficacy beliefs have demonstrated efficacious outcomes in relation to depression, anxiety, stress, general wellbeing, improved resilience, health-related behaviours, and greater pain tolerance [ 58 – 60 ]. Where individuals with depressive symptomology are assessed to be at risk for addictive SMU, a focused psychological intervention designed to target the elevation of their sense of control and self-efficacy may produce an analgesic effect and diminish depressive symptoms; however, this contention should be definitively tested within the context of a rigorous randomized controlled trial.

The results of the mediation analysis also suggest that improving individuals’ sense of control may hypothetically mitigate the development of addictive SMU, however, as with the above suggestion in relation to depression, a definitive conclusion cannot be drawn given the cross-sectional design of the present study. The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated immense uncertainty. Many individuals struggled to manage the profound and relatively instantaneously imposed restrictions to daily life, the uncertainty of not knowing how the pandemic would proceed, and the feelings of loss, both tangible (i.e., loss of income, employment, death of loved ones) and abstract (i.e., loss control and certainty), that invariably accompanied the experience of the pandemic [ 1 , 3 ]. Evidence that emerged during the pandemic demonstrated that some individuals who were unable to resiliently manage these burdensome aspects of the pandemic developed dysfunctional coping strategies such as addictive SMU [ 28 , 37 ]. To escape the reality of a monumentally challenging life experience, some individuals with pre-existing mental health difficulties and/ or risk factors (e.g., a depressive illness) directed their attention towards the online realm to garner psychosocial support, or as a means of distraction, or, for some, this served a mood modification function [ 10 ]. Research indicates that individuals with higher levels of perceived control tend to be more resilient and are able to produce functional coping strategies when navigating distressing and uncertain experiences. Moreover, the experience of functional coping, successfully managing the demands of a challenging life experience, elicits positive emotions (i.e., wellbeing, joy, relief, mastery) and these, in turn, are likely to reduce the desire to turn one’s attention away from the real-world towards online interactions. Therefore, this reinforces this study’s proposition that the promotion of perceived sense of control in individuals at risk of mental health difficulties during stressful circumstances is a worthwhile psychotherapeutic course of action, and this is substantiated by our findings.

Limitations and directions for future research

The following limitations should be borne in mind. First, the cross-sectional design of the study precludes a determination of potential causality. This is especially relevant when considering the principal contention of the examined mediational model. Despite evidence of the potential ameliorative effect that elevating an individual’s sense of control may have on both diminishing depressive symptoms and reducing the likelihood that addictive SMU will ensue, a longitudinal design with multiple assessment points following the delivery of some form of intervention would be needed to reliably assess the impact that improving sense of control might have, if any, on these psychopathological outcomes. Potential interventions to be tested could take the form of meditation [ 61 ], those informed by the concept of salutogenesis [ 62 ], strengths-based interventions [ 63 ], or programs targeting self-defeating cognitions and beliefs [ 64 ]. Thus, while this study has identified a potential target for intervention (i.e., sense of control), the effect of such an intervention should be determined in future studies.

Second, only sense of control was assessed as a mediator. There may be any number of alternate constructs that might similarly mediate this relationship, constructs that were not assessed on this occasion. Specifically, the cacophony of factors that have been shown to be associated with or reflective of positive mental health may be expected to demonstrate a similar effect and, conversely, factors known to compound mental health outcomes may also demonstrate an association between these variables. For example, mindfulness, valued living, committed action, personality, and lifestyle factors such as eating behaviour or the consumption of tobacco and/or alcohol might be considered [ 65 ]. Furthermore, constructs that have been shown to be associated with addictive SMU might also be considered for inclusion in further analyses–these might include internet gaming disorder [ 9 ], attachment style [ 46 ] or personality traits [ 66 ].

Third, participants’ daily duration of social media use or the specific social media platforms that the sample preferred were not measured. These variables are highly relevant to any consideration of addictive SMU as duration of use, and the nature of social media use appears consistently related to the onset of addictive tendencies [ 4 , 10 ]. Additionally, variations in the nature of SMU (i.e., whether use is active or passive) differentially impacts the development of comorbid psychopathological outcomes. Specifically, active engagement on social media platforms (e.g., posting status updates, writing comments to others, and uploading photos) appears more prevalently related to the development of addictive SMU whereas passive use (i.e., browsing content and reading others’ comments) is associated with greater levels of envy, depression, and anxiety [ 7 , 67 ]. Future studies should specifically assess duration of use, the features and platforms preferred, as well as whether SMU is active or passive to enable a determination of their differential effect.

Finally, the reliability and validity of the BSMAS in this population remains uncertain. The scale itself was originally developed with specific reference to Facebook use and while this scale has now been used extensively used, including in Arabic-speaking samples [ 4 ], its results should be interpreted with caution in the absence of an established psychometrically validated version.

The result of this study indicates that, under environmental conditions of immense psychological distress–such as a global pandemic–individuals with pre-existing mental health difficulties, in particular depressive disorders, are at an especially elevated risk for the development of addictive SMU.

Implications

This study suggests that targeting individuals’ sense of control may diminish the potential risk for addictive SMU that is presented by the confluence of pre-existing mental health difficulties and environmental stress. It has long been noted that individuals with depression do indeed report a diminished sense of subjective control over their lives and the events that occur within it as well as the commensurate finding that, where individuals possess higher levels of control, the risk of associated psychological difficulties such as anger, anxiety or depression, precipitously diminishes [ 68 , 69 ]. Given that this study now indicates that this relationship also occurred within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and was elevated by the presence of co-occurring excessive SMU, it would be worthwhile exploring the potential utility of psychological interventions specifically targeting the elevation of sense of control amongst who present with the confluence of these two psychological difficulties. The principal implication of this study is therefore the identification of a potential target for psychotherapeutic intervention for individuals at elevated risk of depression and comorbid excessive SMU. As sense of control represents a form of maladaptive thinking [ 38 ], a cognitively-oriented approach seems most prudent. Positive psychology interventions have also proven to be effective in combating diminished control and elevating wellbeing [ 70 , 71 ], and their potential utility within this context and for individuals with this specific form of presentation, should be explored. Additionally, where individuals find themselves in circumstances that are by their very definition uncertain, such as a global pandemic, structured programs of psychoeducation by prove beneficial as the provision of context-specific information may create a degree of certainty.

Supporting information

S1 file. complete dataset for the study (spss datafile)..

Dataset on which the study’s analyses are based.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291034.s001

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Social Media Addiction and Its Impact on College Students' Academic Performance: The Mediating Role of Stress

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• Volume 32 , pages 81–90, ( 2023 )

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• Lei Zhao   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7337-3065 1 , 2  

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Social media use can bring negative effects to college students, such as social media addiction (SMA) and decline in academic performance. SMA may increase the perceived stress level of college students, and stress has a negative impact on academic performance, but this potential mediating role of stress has not been verified in existing studies. In this paper, a research model was developed to investigate the antecedent variables of SMA, and the relationship between SMA, stress and academic performance. With the data of 372 Chinese college students (mean age 21.3, 42.5% males), Partial Least Squares, Structural Equation Model was adopted to evaluate measurement model and structural model. The results show that use intensity is an important predictor of SMA, and both SMA and stress have a negative impact on college students’ academic performance. In addition, we further confirmed that stress plays a mediating role in the relationship between SMA and college students’ academic performance.

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Zhao, L. Social Media Addiction and Its Impact on College Students' Academic Performance: The Mediating Role of Stress. Asia-Pacific Edu Res 32 , 81–90 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-021-00635-0

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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Research trends in social media addiction and problematic social media use: a bibliometric analysis.

• 1 Sasin School of Management, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
• 2 Business Administration Division, Mahidol University International College, Mahidol University, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand

Despite their increasing ubiquity in people's lives and incredible advantages in instantly interacting with others, social media's impact on subjective well-being is a source of concern worldwide and calls for up-to-date investigations of the role social media plays in mental health. Much research has discovered how habitual social media use may lead to addiction and negatively affect adolescents' school performance, social behavior, and interpersonal relationships. The present study was conducted to review the extant literature in the domain of social media and analyze global research productivity during 2013–2022. Bibliometric analysis was conducted on 501 articles that were extracted from the Scopus database using the keywords social media addiction and problematic social media use. The data were then uploaded to VOSviewer software to analyze citations, co-citations, and keyword co-occurrences. Volume, growth trajectory, geographic distribution of the literature, influential authors, intellectual structure of the literature, and the most prolific publishing sources were analyzed. The bibliometric analysis presented in this paper shows that the US, the UK, and Turkey accounted for 47% of the publications in this field. Most of the studies used quantitative methods in analyzing data and therefore aimed at testing relationships between variables. In addition, the findings in this study show that most analysis were cross-sectional. Studies were performed on undergraduate students between the ages of 19–25 on the use of two social media platforms: Facebook and Instagram. Limitations as well as research directions for future studies are also discussed.

Introduction

Social media generally refers to third-party internet-based platforms that mainly focus on social interactions, community-based inputs, and content sharing among its community of users and only feature content created by their users and not that licensed from third parties ( 1 ). Social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are prominent examples of social media that allow people to stay connected in an online world regardless of geographical distance or other obstacles ( 2 , 3 ). Recent evidence suggests that social networking sites have become increasingly popular among adolescents following the strict policies implemented by many countries to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, including social distancing, “lockdowns,” and quarantine measures ( 4 ). In this new context, social media have become an essential part of everyday life, especially for children and adolescents ( 5 ). For them such media are a means of socialization that connect people together. Interestingly, social media are not only used for social communication and entertainment purposes but also for sharing opinions, learning new things, building business networks, and initiate collaborative projects ( 6 ).

Among the 7.91 billion people in the world as of 2022, 4.62 billion active social media users, and the average time individuals spent using the internet was 6 h 58 min per day with an average use of social media platforms of 2 h and 27 min ( 7 ). Despite their increasing ubiquity in people's lives and the incredible advantages they offer to instantly interact with people, an increasing number of studies have linked social media use to negative mental health consequences, such as suicidality, loneliness, and anxiety ( 8 ). Numerous sources have expressed widespread concern about the effects of social media on mental health. A 2011 report by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) identifies a phenomenon known as Facebook depression which may be triggered “when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites, such as Facebook, and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms of depression” ( 9 ). Similarly, the UK's Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) claims that there is a clear evidence of the relationship between social media use and mental health issues based on a survey of nearly 1,500 people between the ages of 14–24 ( 10 ). According to some authors, the increase in usage frequency of social media significantly increases the risks of clinical disorders described (and diagnosed) as “Facebook depression,” “fear of missing out” (FOMO), and “social comparison orientation” (SCO) ( 11 ). Other risks include sexting ( 12 ), social media stalking ( 13 ), cyber-bullying ( 14 ), privacy breaches ( 15 ), and improper use of technology. Therefore, social media's impact on subjective well-being is a source of concern worldwide and calls for up-to-date investigations of the role social media plays with regard to mental health ( 8 ). Many studies have found that habitual social media use may lead to addiction and thus negatively affect adolescents' school performance, social behavior, and interpersonal relationships ( 16 – 18 ). As a result of addiction, the user becomes highly engaged with online activities motivated by an uncontrollable desire to browse through social media pages and “devoting so much time and effort to it that it impairs other important life areas” ( 19 ).

Given these considerations, the present study was conducted to review the extant literature in the domain of social media and analyze global research productivity during 2013–2022. The study presents a bibliometric overview of the leading trends with particular regard to “social media addiction” and “problematic social media use.” This is valuable as it allows for a comprehensive overview of the current state of this field of research, as well as identifies any patterns or trends that may be present. Additionally, it provides information on the geographical distribution and prolific authors in this area, which may help to inform future research endeavors.

In terms of bibliometric analysis of social media addiction research, few studies have attempted to review the existing literature in the domain extensively. Most previous bibliometric studies on social media addiction and problematic use have focused mainly on one type of screen time activity such as digital gaming or texting ( 20 ) and have been conducted with a focus on a single platform such as Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat ( 21 , 22 ). The present study adopts a more comprehensive approach by including all social media platforms and all types of screen time activities in its analysis.

Additionally, this review aims to highlight the major themes around which the research has evolved to date and draws some guidance for future research directions. In order to meet these objectives, this work is oriented toward answering the following research questions:

(1) What is the current status of research focusing on social media addiction?

(2) What are the key thematic areas in social media addiction and problematic use research?

(3) What is the intellectual structure of social media addiction as represented in the academic literature?

(4) What are the key findings of social media addiction and problematic social media research?

(5) What possible future research gaps can be identified in the field of social media addiction?

These research questions will be answered using bibliometric analysis of the literature on social media addiction and problematic use. This will allow for an overview of the research that has been conducted in this area, including information on the most influential authors, journals, countries of publication, and subject areas of study. Part 2 of the study will provide an examination of the intellectual structure of the extant literature in social media addiction while Part 3 will discuss the research methodology of the paper. Part 4 will discuss the findings of the study followed by a discussion under Part 5 of the paper. Finally, in Part 7, gaps in current knowledge about this field of research will be identified.

Literature review

Social media addiction research context.

Previous studies on behavioral addictions have looked at a lot of different factors that affect social media addiction focusing on personality traits. Although there is some inconsistency in the literature, numerous studies have focused on three main personality traits that may be associated with social media addiction, namely anxiety, depression, and extraversion ( 23 , 24 ).

It has been found that extraversion scores are strongly associated with increased use of social media and addiction to it ( 25 , 26 ). People with social anxiety as well as people who have psychiatric disorders often find online interactions extremely appealing ( 27 ). The available literature also reveals that the use of social media is positively associated with being female, single, and having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), or anxiety ( 28 ).

In a study by Seidman ( 29 ), the Big Five personality traits were assessed using Saucier's ( 30 ) Mini-Markers Scale. Results indicated that neurotic individuals use social media as a safe place for expressing their personality and meet belongingness needs. People affected by neurosis tend to use online social media to stay in touch with other people and feel better about their social lives ( 31 ). Narcissism is another factor that has been examined extensively when it comes to social media, and it has been found that people who are narcissistic are more likely to become addicted to social media ( 32 ). In this case users want to be seen and get “likes” from lots of other users. Longstreet and Brooks ( 33 ) did a study on how life satisfaction depends on how much money people make. Life satisfaction was found to be negatively linked to social media addiction, according to the results. When social media addiction decreases, the level of life satisfaction rises. But results show that in lieu of true-life satisfaction people use social media as a substitute (for temporary pleasure vs. longer term happiness).

Researchers have discovered similar patterns in students who tend to rank high in shyness: they find it easier to express themselves online rather than in person ( 34 , 35 ). With the use of social media, shy individuals have the opportunity to foster better quality relationships since many of their anxiety-related concerns (e.g., social avoidance and fear of social devaluation) are significantly reduced ( 36 , 37 ).

Problematic use of social media

The amount of research on problematic use of social media has dramatically increased since the last decade. But using social media in an unhealthy manner may not be considered an addiction or a disorder as this behavior has not yet been formally categorized as such ( 38 ). Although research has shown that people who use social media in a negative way often report negative health-related conditions, most of the data that have led to such results and conclusions comprise self-reported data ( 39 ). The dimensions of excessive social media usage are not exactly known because there are not enough diagnostic criteria and not enough high-quality long-term studies available yet. This is what Zendle and Bowden-Jones ( 40 ) noted in their own research. And this is why terms like “problematic social media use” have been used to describe people who use social media in a negative way. Furthermore, if a lot of time is spent on social media, it can be hard to figure out just when it is being used in a harmful way. For instance, people easily compare their appearance to what they see on social media, and this might lead to low self-esteem if they feel they do not look as good as the people they are following. According to research in this domain, the extent to which an individual engages in photo-related activities (e.g., taking selfies, editing photos, checking other people's photos) on social media is associated with negative body image concerns. Through curated online images of peers, adolescents face challenges to their self-esteem and sense of self-worth and are increasingly isolated from face-to-face interaction.

To address this problem the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) has been used by some scholars ( 41 , 42 ). These scholars have used criteria from the DSM-V to describe one problematic social media use, internet gaming disorder, but such criteria could also be used to describe other types of social media disorders. Franchina et al. ( 43 ) and Scott and Woods ( 44 ), for example, focus their attention on individual-level factors (like fear of missing out) and family-level factors (like childhood abuse) that have been used to explain why people use social media in a harmful way. Friends-level factors have also been explored as a social well-being measurement to explain why people use social media in a malevolent way and demonstrated significant positive correlations with lower levels of friend support ( 45 ). Macro-level factors have also been suggested, such as the normalization of surveillance ( 46 ) and the ability to see what people are doing online ( 47 ). Gender and age seem to be highly associated to the ways people use social media negatively. Particularly among girls, social media use is consistently associated with mental health issues ( 41 , 48 , 49 ), an association more common among older girls than younger girls ( 46 , 48 ).

Most studies have looked at the connection between social media use and its effects (such as social media addiction) and a number of different psychosomatic disorders. In a recent study conducted by Vannucci and Ohannessian ( 50 ), the use of social media appears to have a variety of effects “on psychosocial adjustment during early adolescence, with high social media use being the most problematic.” It has been found that people who use social media in a harmful way are more likely to be depressed, anxious, have low self-esteem, be more socially isolated, have poorer sleep quality, and have more body image dissatisfaction. Furthermore, harmful social media use has been associated with unhealthy lifestyle patterns (for example, not getting enough exercise or having trouble managing daily obligations) as well as life threatening behaviors such as illicit drug use, excessive alcohol consumption and unsafe sexual practices ( 51 , 52 ).

A growing body of research investigating social media use has revealed that the extensive use of social media platforms is correlated with a reduced performance on cognitive tasks and in mental effort ( 53 ). Overall, it appears that individuals who have a problematic relationship with social media or those who use social media more frequently are more likely to develop negative health conditions.

Social media addiction and problematic use systematic reviews

Previous studies have revealed the detrimental impacts of social media addiction on users' health. A systematic review by Khan and Khan ( 20 ) has pointed out that social media addiction has a negative impact on users' mental health. For example, social media addiction can lead to stress levels rise, loneliness, and sadness ( 54 ). Anxiety is another common mental health problem associated with social media addiction. Studies have found that young adolescents who are addicted to social media are more likely to suffer from anxiety than people who are not addicted to social media ( 55 ). In addition, social media addiction can also lead to physical health problems, such as obesity and carpal tunnel syndrome a result of spending too much time on the computer ( 22 ).

Apart from the negative impacts of social media addiction on users' mental and physical health, social media addiction can also lead to other problems. For example, social media addiction can lead to financial problems. A study by Sharif and Yeoh ( 56 ) has found that people who are addicted to social media tend to spend more money than those who are not addicted to social media. In addition, social media addiction can also lead to a decline in academic performance. Students who are addicted to social media are more likely to have lower grades than those who are not addicted to social media ( 57 ).

Research methodology

Bibliometric analysis.

Merigo et al. ( 58 ) use bibliometric analysis to examine, organize, and analyze a large body of literature from a quantitative, objective perspective in order to assess patterns of research and emerging trends in a certain field. A bibliometric methodology is used to identify the current state of the academic literature, advance research. and find objective information ( 59 ). This technique allows the researchers to examine previous scientific work, comprehend advancements in prior knowledge, and identify future study opportunities.

To achieve this objective and identify the research trends in social media addiction and problematic social media use, this study employs two bibliometric methodologies: performance analysis and science mapping. Performance analysis uses a series of bibliometric indicators (e.g., number of annual publications, document type, source type, journal impact factor, languages, subject area, h-index, and countries) and aims at evaluating groups of scientific actors on a particular topic of research. VOSviewer software ( 60 ) was used to carry out the science mapping. The software is used to visualize a particular body of literature and map the bibliographic material using the co-occurrence analysis of author, index keywords, nations, and fields of publication ( 61 , 62 ).

Data collection

After picking keywords, designing the search strings, and building up a database, the authors conducted a bibliometric literature search. Scopus was utilized to gather exploration data since it is a widely used database that contains the most comprehensive view of the world's research output and provides one of the most effective search engines. If the research was to be performed using other database such as Web Of Science or Google Scholar the authors may have obtained larger number of articles however they may not have been all particularly relevant as Scopus is known to have the most widest and most relevant scholar search engine in marketing and social science. A keyword search for “social media addiction” OR “problematic social media use” yielded 553 papers, which were downloaded from Scopus. The information was gathered in March 2022, and because the Scopus database is updated on a regular basis, the results may change in the future. Next, the authors examined the titles and abstracts to see whether they were relevant to the topics treated. There were two common grounds for document exclusion. First, while several documents emphasized the negative effects of addiction in relation to the internet and digital media, they did not focus on social networking sites specifically. Similarly, addiction and problematic consumption habits were discussed in relation to social media in several studies, although only in broad terms. This left a total of 511 documents. Articles were then limited only to journal articles, conference papers, reviews, books, and only those published in English. This process excluded 10 additional documents. Then, the relevance of the remaining articles was finally checked by reading the titles, abstracts, and keywords. Documents were excluded if social networking sites were only mentioned as a background topic or very generally. This resulted in a final selection of 501 research papers, which were then subjected to bibliometric analysis (see Figure 1 ).

Figure 1 . Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) flowchart showing the search procedures used in the review.

After identifying 501 Scopus files, bibliographic data related to these documents were imported into an Excel sheet where the authors' names, their affiliations, document titles, keywords, abstracts, and citation figures were analyzed. These were subsequently uploaded into VOSViewer software version 1.6.8 to begin the bibliometric review. Descriptive statistics were created to define the whole body of knowledge about social media addiction and problematic social media use. VOSViewer was used to analyze citation, co-citation, and keyword co-occurrences. According to Zupic and Cater ( 63 ), co-citation analysis measures the influence of documents, authors, and journals heavily cited and thus considered influential. Co-citation analysis has the objective of building similarities between authors, journals, and documents and is generally defined as the frequency with which two units are cited together within the reference list of a third article.

The implementation of social media addiction performance analysis was conducted according to the models recently introduced by Karjalainen et al. ( 64 ) and Pattnaik ( 65 ). Throughout the manuscript there are operational definitions of relevant terms and indicators following a standardized bibliometric approach. The cumulative academic impact (CAI) of the documents was measured by the number of times they have been cited in other scholarly works while the fine-grained academic impact (FIA) was computed according to the authors citation analysis and authors co-citation analysis within the reference lists of documents that have been specifically focused on social media addiction and problematic social media use.

Results of the study presented here include the findings on social media addiction and social media problematic use. The results are presented by the foci outlined in the study questions.

Volume, growth trajectory, and geographic distribution of the literature

After performing the Scopus-based investigation of the current literature regarding social media addiction and problematic use of social media, the authors obtained a knowledge base consisting of 501 documents comprising 455 journal articles, 27 conference papers, 15 articles reviews, 3 books and 1 conference review. The included literature was very recent. As shown in Figure 2 , publication rates started very slowly in 2013 but really took off in 2018, after which publications dramatically increased each year until a peak was reached in 2021 with 195 publications. Analyzing the literature published during the past decade reveals an exponential increase in scholarly production on social addiction and its problematic use. This might be due to the increasingly widespread introduction of social media sites in everyday life and the ubiquitous diffusion of mobile devices that have fundamentally impacted human behavior. The dip in the number of publications in 2022 is explained by the fact that by the time the review was carried out the year was not finished yet and therefore there are many articles still in press.

Figure 2 . Annual volume of social media addiction or social media problematic use ( n = 501).

The geographical distribution trends of scholarly publications on social media addiction or problematic use of social media are highlighted in Figure 3 . The articles were assigned to a certain country according to the nationality of the university with whom the first author was affiliated with. The figure shows that the most productive countries are the USA (92), the U.K. (79), and Turkey ( 63 ), which combined produced 236 articles, equal to 47% of the entire scholarly production examined in this bibliometric analysis. Turkey has slowly evolved in various ways with the growth of the internet and social media. Anglo-American scholarly publications on problematic social media consumer behavior represent the largest research output. Yet it is interesting to observe that social networking sites studies are attracting many researchers in Asian countries, particularly China. For many Chinese people, social networking sites are a valuable opportunity to involve people in political activism in addition to simply making purchases ( 66 ).

Figure 3 . Global dispersion of social networking sites in relation to social media addiction or social media problematic use.

Analysis of influential authors

This section analyses the high-impact authors in the Scopus-indexed knowledge base on social networking sites in relation to social media addiction or problematic use of social media. It provides valuable insights for establishing patterns of knowledge generation and dissemination of literature about social networking sites relating to addiction and problematic use.

Table 1 acknowledges the top 10 most highly cited authors with the highest total citations in the database.

Table 1 . Highly cited authors on social media addiction and problematic use ( n = 501).

Table 1 shows that MD Griffiths (sixty-five articles), CY Lin (twenty articles), and AH Pakpour (eighteen articles) are the most productive scholars according to the number of Scopus documents examined in the area of social media addiction and its problematic use . If the criteria are changed and authors ranked according to the overall number of citations received in order to determine high-impact authors, the same three authors turn out to be the most highly cited authors. It should be noted that these highly cited authors tend to enlist several disciplines in examining social media addiction and problematic use. Griffiths, for example, focuses on behavioral addiction stemming from not only digital media usage but also from gambling and video games. Lin, on the other hand, focuses on the negative effects that the internet and digital media can have on users' mental health, and Pakpour approaches the issue from a behavioral medicine perspective.

Intellectual structure of the literature

In this part of the paper, the authors illustrate the “intellectual structure” of the social media addiction and the problematic use of social media's literature. An author co-citation analysis (ACA) was performed which is displayed as a figure that depicts the relations between highly co-cited authors. The study of co-citation assumes that strongly co-cited authors carry some form of intellectual similarity ( 67 ). Figure 4 shows the author co-citation map. Nodes represent units of analysis (in this case scholars) and network ties represent similarity connections. Nodes are sized according to the number of co-citations received—the bigger the node, the more co-citations it has. Adjacent nodes are considered intellectually similar.

Figure 4 . Two clusters, representing the intellectual structure of the social media and its problematic use literature.

Scholars belonging to the green cluster (Mental Health and Digital Media Addiction) have extensively published on medical analysis tools and how these can be used to heal users suffering from addiction to digital media, which can range from gambling, to internet, to videogame addictions. Scholars in this school of thought focus on the negative effects on users' mental health, such as depression, anxiety, and personality disturbances. Such studies focus also on the role of screen use in the development of mental health problems and the increasing use of medical treatments to address addiction to digital media. They argue that addiction to digital media should be considered a mental health disorder and treatment options should be made available to users.

In contrast, scholars within the red cluster (Social Media Effects on Well Being and Cyberpsychology) have focused their attention on the effects of social media toward users' well-being and how social media change users' behavior, focusing particular attention on the human-machine interaction and how methods and models can help protect users' well-being. Two hundred and two authors belong to this group, the top co-cited being Andreassen (667 co-citations), Pallasen (555 co-citations), and Valkenburg (215 co-citations). These authors have extensively studied the development of addiction to social media, problem gambling, and internet addiction. They have also focused on the measurement of addiction to social media, cyberbullying, and the dark side of social media.

Most influential source title in the field of social media addiction and its problematic use

To find the preferred periodicals in the field of social media addiction and its problematic use, the authors have selected 501 articles published in 263 journals. Table 2 gives a ranked list of the top 10 journals that constitute the core publishing sources in the field of social media addiction research. In doing so, the authors analyzed the journal's impact factor, Scopus Cite Score, h-index, quartile ranking, and number of publications per year.

Table 2 . Top 10 most cited and more frequently mentioned documents in the field of social media addiction.

The journal Addictive Behaviors topped the list, with 700 citations and 22 publications (4.3%), followed by Computers in Human Behaviors , with 577 citations and 13 publications (2.5%), Journal of Behavioral Addictions , with 562 citations and 17 publications (3.3%), and International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction , with 502 citations and 26 publications (5.1%). Five of the 10 most productive journals in the field of social media addiction research are published by Elsevier (all Q1 rankings) while Springer and Frontiers Media published one journal each.

Documents citation analysis identified the most influential and most frequently mentioned documents in a certain scientific field. Andreassen has received the most citations among the 10 most significant papers on social media addiction, with 405 ( Table 2 ). The main objective of this type of studies was to identify the associations and the roles of different variables as predictors of social media addiction (e.g., ( 19 , 68 , 69 )). According to general addiction models, the excessive and problematic use of digital technologies is described as “being overly concerned about social media, driven by an uncontrollable motivation to log on to or use social media, and devoting so much time and effort to social media that it impairs other important life areas” ( 27 , 70 ). Furthermore, the purpose of several highly cited studies ( 31 , 71 ) was to analyse the connections between young adults' sleep quality and psychological discomfort, depression, self-esteem, and life satisfaction and the severity of internet and problematic social media use, since the health of younger generations and teenagers is of great interest this may help explain the popularity of such papers. Despite being the most recent publication Lin et al.'s work garnered more citations annually. The desire to quantify social media addiction in individuals can also help explain the popularity of studies which try to develop measurement scales ( 42 , 72 ). Some of the highest-ranked publications are devoted to either the presentation of case studies or testing relationships among psychological constructs ( 73 ).

Keyword co-occurrence analysis

The research question, “What are the key thematic areas in social media addiction literature?” was answered using keyword co-occurrence analysis. Keyword co-occurrence analysis is conducted to identify research themes and discover keywords. It mainly examines the relationships between co-occurrence keywords in a wide variety of literature ( 74 ). In this approach, the idea is to explore the frequency of specific keywords being mentioned together.

Utilizing VOSviewer, the authors conducted a keyword co-occurrence analysis to characterize and review the developing trends in the field of social media addiction. The top 10 most frequent keywords are presented in Table 3 . The results indicate that “social media addiction” is the most frequent keyword (178 occurrences), followed by “problematic social media use” (74 occurrences), “internet addiction” (51 occurrences), and “depression” (46 occurrences). As shown in the co-occurrence network ( Figure 5 ), the keywords can be grouped into two major clusters. “Problematic social media use” can be identified as the core theme of the green cluster. In the red cluster, keywords mainly identify a specific aspect of problematic social media use: social media addiction.

Table 3 . Frequency of occurrence of top 10 keywords.

Figure 5 . Keywords co-occurrence map. Threshold: 5 co-occurrences.

The results of the keyword co-occurrence analysis for journal articles provide valuable perspectives and tools for understanding concepts discussed in past studies of social media usage ( 75 ). More precisely, it can be noted that there has been a large body of research on social media addiction together with other types of technological addictions, such as compulsive web surfing, internet gaming disorder, video game addiction and compulsive online shopping ( 76 – 78 ). This field of research has mainly been directed toward teenagers, middle school students, and college students and university students in order to understand the relationship between social media addiction and mental health issues such as depression, disruptions in self-perceptions, impairment of social and emotional activity, anxiety, neuroticism, and stress ( 79 – 81 ).

The findings presented in this paper show that there has been an exponential increase in scholarly publications—from two publications in 2013 to 195 publications in 2021. There were 45 publications in 2022 at the time this study was conducted. It was interesting to observe that the US, the UK, and Turkey accounted for 47% of the publications in this field even though none of these countries are in the top 15 countries in terms of active social media penetration ( 82 ) although the US has the third highest number of social media users ( 83 ). Even though China and India have the highest number of social media users ( 83 ), first and second respectively, they rank fifth and tenth in terms of publications on social media addiction or problematic use of social media. In fact, the US has almost double the number of publications in this field compared to China and almost five times compared to India. Even though East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia make up the top three regions in terms of worldwide social media users ( 84 ), except for China and India there have been only a limited number of publications on social media addiction or problematic use. An explanation for that could be that there is still a lack of awareness on the negative consequences of the use of social media and the impact it has on the mental well-being of users. More research in these regions should perhaps be conducted in order to understand the problematic use and addiction of social media so preventive measures can be undertaken.

From the bibliometric analysis, it was found that most of the studies examined used quantitative methods in analyzing data and therefore aimed at testing relationships between variables. In addition, many studies were empirical, aimed at testing relationships based on direct or indirect observations of social media use. Very few studies used theories and for the most part if they did they used the technology acceptance model and social comparison theories. The findings presented in this paper show that none of the studies attempted to create or test new theories in this field, perhaps due to the lack of maturity of the literature. Moreover, neither have very many qualitative studies been conducted in this field. More qualitative research in this field should perhaps be conducted as it could explore the motivations and rationales from which certain users' behavior may arise.

The authors found that almost all the publications on social media addiction or problematic use relied on samples of undergraduate students between the ages of 19–25. The average daily time spent by users worldwide on social media applications was highest for users between the ages of 40–44, at 59.85 min per day, followed by those between the ages of 35–39, at 59.28 min per day, and those between the ages of 45–49, at 59.23 per day ( 85 ). Therefore, more studies should be conducted exploring different age groups, as users between the ages of 19–25 do not represent the entire population of social media users. Conducting studies on different age groups may yield interesting and valuable insights to the field of social media addiction. For example, it would be interesting to measure the impacts of social media use among older users aged 50 years or older who spend almost the same amount of time on social media as other groups of users (56.43 min per day) ( 85 ).

A majority of the studies tested social media addiction or problematic use based on only two social media platforms: Facebook and Instagram. Although Facebook and Instagram are ranked first and fourth in terms of most popular social networks by number of monthly users, it would be interesting to study other platforms such as YouTube, which is ranked second, and WhatsApp, which is ranked third ( 86 ). Furthermore, TikTok would also be an interesting platform to study as it has grown in popularity in recent years, evident from it being the most downloaded application in 2021, with 656 million downloads ( 87 ), and is ranked second in Q1 of 2022 ( 88 ). Moreover, most of the studies focused only on one social media platform. Comparing different social media platforms would yield interesting results because each platform is different in terms of features, algorithms, as well as recommendation engines. The purpose as well as the user behavior for using each platform is also different, therefore why users are addicted to these platforms could provide a meaningful insight into social media addiction and problematic social media use.

Lastly, most studies were cross-sectional, and not longitudinal, aiming at describing results over a certain point in time and not over a long period of time. A longitudinal study could better describe the long-term effects of social media use.

This study was conducted to review the extant literature in the field of social media and analyze the global research productivity during the period ranging from 2013 to 2022. The study presents a bibliometric overview of the leading trends with particular regard to “social media addiction” and “problematic social media use.” The authors applied science mapping to lay out a knowledge base on social media addiction and its problematic use. This represents the first large-scale analysis in this area of study.

A keyword search of “social media addiction” OR “problematic social media use” yielded 553 papers, which were downloaded from Scopus. After performing the Scopus-based investigation of the current literature regarding social media addiction and problematic use, the authors ended up with a knowledge base consisting of 501 documents comprising 455 journal articles, 27 conference papers, 15 articles reviews, 3 books, and 1 conference review.

The geographical distribution trends of scholarly publications on social media addiction or problematic use indicate that the most productive countries were the USA (92), the U.K. (79), and Turkey ( 63 ), which together produced 236 articles. Griffiths (sixty-five articles), Lin (twenty articles), and Pakpour (eighteen articles) were the most productive scholars according to the number of Scopus documents examined in the area of social media addiction and its problematic use. An author co-citation analysis (ACA) was conducted which generated a layout of social media effects on well-being and cyber psychology as well as mental health and digital media addiction in the form of two research literature clusters representing the intellectual structure of social media and its problematic use.

The preferred periodicals in the field of social media addiction and its problematic use were Addictive Behaviors , with 700 citations and 22 publications, followed by Computers in Human Behavior , with 577 citations and 13 publications, and Journal of Behavioral Addictions , with 562 citations and 17 publications. Keyword co-occurrence analysis was used to investigate the key thematic areas in the social media literature, as represented by the top three keyword phrases in terms of their frequency of occurrence, namely, “social media addiction,” “problematic social media use,” and “social media addiction.”

This research has a few limitations. The authors used science mapping to improve the comprehension of the literature base in this review. First and foremost, the authors want to emphasize that science mapping should not be utilized in place of established review procedures, but rather as a supplement. As a result, this review can be considered the initial stage, followed by substantive research syntheses that examine findings from recent research. Another constraint stems from how 'social media addiction' is defined. The authors overcame this limitation by inserting the phrase “social media addiction” OR “problematic social media use” in the search string. The exclusive focus on SCOPUS-indexed papers creates a third constraint. The SCOPUS database has a larger number of papers than does Web of Science although it does not contain all the publications in a given field.

Although the total body of literature on social media addiction is larger than what is covered in this review, the use of co-citation analyses helped to mitigate this limitation. This form of bibliometric study looks at all the publications listed in the reference list of the extracted SCOPUS database documents. As a result, a far larger dataset than the one extracted from SCOPUS initially has been analyzed.

The interpretation of co-citation maps should be mentioned as a last constraint. The reason is that the procedure is not always clear, so scholars must have a thorough comprehension of the knowledge base in order to make sense of the result of the analysis ( 63 ). This issue was addressed by the authors' expertise, but it remains somewhat subjective.

Implications

The findings of this study have implications mainly for government entities and parents. The need for regulation of social media addiction is evident when considering the various risks associated with habitual social media use. Social media addiction may lead to negative consequences for adolescents' school performance, social behavior, and interpersonal relationships. In addition, social media addiction may also lead to other risks such as sexting, social media stalking, cyber-bullying, privacy breaches, and improper use of technology. Given the seriousness of these risks, it is important to have regulations in place to protect adolescents from the harms of social media addiction.

Regulation of social media platforms

One way that regulation could help protect adolescents from the harms of social media addiction is by limiting their access to certain websites or platforms. For example, governments could restrict adolescents' access to certain websites or platforms during specific hours of the day. This would help ensure that they are not spending too much time on social media and are instead focusing on their schoolwork or other important activities.

Another way that regulation could help protect adolescents from the harms of social media addiction is by requiring companies to put warning labels on their websites or apps. These labels would warn adolescents about the potential risks associated with excessive use of social media.

Finally, regulation could also require companies to provide information about how much time each day is recommended for using their website or app. This would help adolescents make informed decisions about how much time they want to spend on social media each day. These proposed regulations would help to protect children from the dangers of social media, while also ensuring that social media companies are more transparent and accountable to their users.

Parental involvement in adolescents' social media use

Parents should be involved in their children's social media use to ensure that they are using these platforms safely and responsibly. Parents can monitor their children's online activity, set time limits for social media use, and talk to their children about the risks associated with social media addiction.

Education on responsible social media use

Adolescents need to be educated about responsible social media use so that they can enjoy the benefits of these platforms while avoiding the risks associated with addiction. Education on responsible social media use could include topics such as cyber-bullying, sexting, and privacy breaches.

Research directions for future studies

A content analysis was conducted to answer the fifth research questions “What are the potential research directions for addressing social media addiction in the future?” The study reveals that there is a lack of screening instruments and diagnostic criteria to assess social media addiction. Validated DSM-V-based instruments could shed light on the factors behind social media use disorder. Diagnostic research may be useful in order to understand social media behavioral addiction and gain deeper insights into the factors responsible for psychological stress and psychiatric disorders. In addition to cross-sectional studies, researchers should also conduct longitudinal studies and experiments to assess changes in users' behavior over time ( 20 ).

Another important area to examine is the role of engagement-based ranking and recommendation algorithms in online habit formation. More research is required to ascertain how algorithms determine which content type generates higher user engagement. A clear understanding of the way social media platforms gather content from users and amplify their preferences would lead to the development of a standardized conceptualization of social media usage patterns ( 89 ). This may provide a clearer picture of the factors that lead to problematic social media use and addiction. It has been noted that “misinformation, toxicity, and violent content are inordinately prevalent” in material reshared by users and promoted by social media algorithms ( 90 ).

Additionally, an understanding of engagement-based ranking models and recommendation algorithms is essential in order to implement appropriate public policy measures. To address the specific behavioral concerns created by social media, legislatures must craft appropriate statutes. Thus, future qualitative research to assess engagement based ranking frameworks is extremely necessary in order to provide a broader perspective on social media use and tackle key regulatory gaps. Particular emphasis must be placed on consumer awareness, algorithm bias, privacy issues, ethical platform design, and extraction and monetization of personal data ( 91 ).

From a geographical perspective, the authors have identified some main gaps in the existing knowledge base that uncover the need for further research in certain regions of the world. Accordingly, the authors suggest encouraging more studies on internet and social media addiction in underrepresented regions with high social media penetration rates such as Southeast Asia and South America. In order to draw more contributions from these countries, journals with high impact factors could also make specific calls. This would contribute to educating social media users about platform usage and implement policy changes that support the development of healthy social media practices.

The authors hope that the findings gathered here will serve to fuel interest in this topic and encourage other scholars to investigate social media addiction in other contexts on newer platforms and among wide ranges of sample populations. In light of the rising numbers of people experiencing mental health problems (e.g., depression, anxiety, food disorders, and substance addiction) in recent years, it is likely that the number of papers related to social media addiction and the range of countries covered will rise even further.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding authors.

Author contributions

AP took care of bibliometric analysis and drafting the paper. VB took care of proofreading and adding value to the paper. AS took care of the interpretation of the findings. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: bibliometric analysis, social media, social media addiction, problematic social media use, research trends

Citation: Pellegrino A, Stasi A and Bhatiasevi V (2022) Research trends in social media addiction and problematic social media use: A bibliometric analysis. Front. Psychiatry 13:1017506. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1017506

Received: 12 August 2022; Accepted: 24 October 2022; Published: 10 November 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Pellegrino, Stasi and Bhatiasevi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Alfonso Pellegrino, alfonso.pellegrino@sasin.edu ; Veera Bhatiasevi, veera.bhatiasevi@mahidol.ac.th

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Social Media Addiction: Today’s Golden Goose?

Related articles.

We’ve witnessed the opioid addiction crisis suffering through its mismanagement. Now, we face another scourge of addiction – again resulting in untimely deaths of young people while bankrupting and overtaking their emotional lives. This debacle is caused by social media, with recompense and responsibility avoided, and guardrails are yet to be widely implemented.

Breaking legal barriers seems to be about to change. Where the Communications Act (Section 230) and the First Amendment once invoked an impenetrable veil of social media (SM) liability, that veil has now been punctured; litigation against the major social media hubs has been sanctioned and is ongoing. Targeted in these suits are Alphabet, which operates Google and YouTube; Meta Platforms, which operates Facebook and Instagram; ByteDance, which operates TikTok; and Snap, which operates Snapchat.

In addition to suits alleging damage to the mental health of youngsters, over 140 school districts lodged similar suits, and 42 states plus the District of Columbia recently sued Meta  for “youth addiction.” Hundreds of these cases have been consolidated in an MDL, Multi-District Litigation, a federal procedure where one Court addresses the overarching questions of law (although the individual plaintiffs ultimately must prove their own unique harms against each defendant). Last November , Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers ruled the MDL lawsuits could proceed, focusing on proprietary algorithms created by the platforms that allegedly engender addictions overtaking young lives while greening the linings of the pockets of the developers.

Flying under the radar are 25 additional suits consolidated under Judge Roger’s MDL, alleging fraud, fraudulent concealment (by omission), and negligent misrepresentation against Mark Zuckerberg , individually. Zuckerberg, a public figure, made public statements to Congress and elsewhere, allegedly intentionally failing to disclose salient facts known only to him and Meta, which, but for this failure, plaintiffs claim they would not have used SM, protecting themselves from this dangerous activity. In other words, had the information been made known, the plaintiffs claim they would have avoided SM’s addictive exposure, which, like the golden goose, forever addict the grabber to the grabbed.

The specific fraudulent and negligent statements claimed Zuckerberg publicly made include:

• “Facebook’s controls are not just to make people feel safe, it’s actually what people want in the project.
• One of the most important responsibilities we have as a company is to keep people safe and stop anyone from abusing our service.
• You should expect we’ll do everything we can to keep you safe on our services, within the bounds of an encrypted service.
• We do not allow people under the age of 13 to sign up….”

The plaintiffs claim that Zuckerberg, a public figure with direct knowledge of Meta’s safety practices and policy, together with his tight control over Meta’s design, including developing user engagement policies, renders his statements (or rather concealment of information) an actionable pattern of fraudulent concealment and negligent misrepresentation.

Fraudulent concealment and negligent misrepresentation

Federal fraud claims must describe the precise circumstances constituting the fraud, along with the “who, what, where, when, and how” of the misconduct charged. But, since the claim here is concealment by omission, we have no idea precisely what Zuckerberg failed to disclose. But the thorns get thicker. Here, we have plaintiffs from 13 states, many of which have idiosyncrasies that must be addressed.

Overall, state claims for fraud and misrepresentation (deriving from common law tort) all require allegations of:

• A false representation
• The speaker’s knowledge of its falsity
• An intent to defraud
• The hearer’s reasonable reliance on that statement
• Consequence and proximate (i.e., directly related) injury.

The core elements for negligent misrepresentation are similar - with two modifications:

• The speaker’s intent involves inducing the hearer’s reliance on the statement(s)
• The speaker must fail to exercise reasonable care in communicating, which includes breaching a duty of due care to the plaintiffs.

However, there are two types of fraudulent or negligent speech: sins by omission (i.e., failure to disclose) and sins by commission (i.e., “speaking with forked tongue”). In the latter, the duty is of due care; one must speak as a reasonably prudent person under the circumstances.

It is with sins of omission (concealment or failing in forth-comingness) that we find the greatest state variations. Not all states allow the claim. In those that do, there must be a legal duty to disclose the “hidden information.”  The 25 plaintiffs build their entire case on this theory, inexplicably omitting attacking Zuckerberg’s public representations of safety that are surely more amenable to criticism. Even in states recognizing the claim – the duty to disclose varies by state [1].

A Special Relationship

The plaintiffs do not allege these basic rubrics; instead, they claim that Zuckerberg’s public persona and superior knowledge create a “confidential” or “special relationship.” To establish this aura, the plaintiffs argue that Zuckerberg postured himself as “the trusted voice of all things Meta,” remaining an “approachable voice to the public” and somehow extrapolating this to creating a special relationship.

The Court didn’t buy it and, in ruling, tossed the claim:

“ Plaintiff’s theory would invert the states’ “confidential” or “special” relationship requirements by creating a duty to disclose for any individual recognizable in the public. The Court will not countenance such a novel approach here. ”

However, the Court delivered one sliver of a loophole, allowing the plaintiffs to amend their pleading to claim Zuckerberg was acting as a corporate officer, participating in or authorizing Meta’s alleged misrepresentation and failure to disclose in that capacity. I don’t view this as a present. Had the Court totally shuttered their claim, they could have immediately appealed the ruling. But now, their case is on life support; as generally speaking, corporate officers are shielded from liability – and Zuckerberg remains off the appellate radar screen for now. Likely, the case will eventually get there.

More specific claims

Surprisingly, the 25 plaintiffs selected what appears to be the hardest claim to establish against Zuckerberg. As more information is revealed from related lawsuits filed all over the country, Meta’s knowledge, along with their allegedly “historical refusal” to attend to child safety – explicitly contradicted by Zuckerberg’s protestations of safety, is surfacing. This knowledge could be imputed to Zuckerberg. In other words, we could have explicit claims of misrepresentation rather than vague, unspecified omissions, whose specifics we have no idea and Zuckerberg’s protestations of “safety” could be considered careless, imprudent, and possibly fraudulent.

The filing by New Mexico’s attorney general, gives us some examples, with recent documents revealing the potential of

"adult strangers being able to contact children on Instagram,  “the sexualization of minors on that platform, and the dangers of its “people you may know” feature that recommends connections between adults and children.”

An internal chat from July of 2020 is illustrative :

  “What specifically are we doing for child grooming (something I just heard about that is happening a lot on TikTok)?” asked one employee.  To which co-employee responded:, “Somewhere between zero and negligible. Child safety is an explicit non-goal this half.”

The legal difficulty with lax concern for youngsters’ mental health is that it doesn’t feed into the claim that courts are giving the most credence: SM algorithms and design that create addiction.

More evidence is yet to come. In February, New York City filed suit alleging that children and adolescents are especially susceptible to brain-altering changes engineered by the dopamine releases triggered by likes, etc. The 311-page complaint alleges that “youths are now addicted to defendant’s platforms in droves.” As discovery proceeds, more information is sure to come to light.

These claims are prompting more responsible behavior on the part of the SM platforms: Meta is taking steps to make the platform safer , hiding suggestive posts regarding suicide or self-harm from children who might be inclined to read and be adversely influenced by them. And cases are suggesting more protections. On May 1, Columbia’s Knight First Amendment Institute filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms seeking to release a tool that enables users to unfollow all the content fed to them by Facebook’s algorithm. [2]

In Georgia, a young adult filed a similar suit against Microsoft and Nintendo, claiming his life has been overtaken by the addictive nature of video games., claiming:

"video game addiction to the defendants’ products has caused him to suffer from brain damage, gamer’s rage, emotional distress, behavioral issues, trouble focusing at school, dropping grades and withdrawal symptoms.”  

Some opponents claim that seeking damages against SM platforms and game developers transfers individual responsibility. akin to blaming casinos for gamblers’ addictions. Others argue that, like cigarettes, those creating a product known to have serious dangers are obligated to warn. I don’t foresee SM making those warnings in the near future, but perhaps compelled warnings might surface sooner. Let’s hope.

Advisory:  At the very least, the issues raise the problem of mental health. Calling or texting 988 will connect callers with trained mental health counselors.

[1] Arizona, Connecticut,  Pennsylvania, and Texas recognize the claim only where the claimant is a party to a business transaction. Georgia allows the claim if the parties are in a “confidential relationship.” In New York, a requirement of a confidential or fiduciary relationship between the parties is necessary, while in Colorado, “ a defendant has a duty to disclose to a plaintiff with whom he or she deals material facts that “in the equity or good conscience [are] to be disclosed.”

[2] “The tool , called Unfollow Everything 2.0, is a browser extension that would let Facebook users unfollow friends, groups and pages and empty their newsfeed — the stream of posts, photos and videos that can keep them scrolling endlessly.”

View the discussion thread.

By Barbara Pfeffer Billauer JD MA (Occ. Health) PhD

Dr. Billauer, JD MA (Occ. Health) Ph.D. is Professor of Law and Bioethics in the International Program in Bioethics of the University of Porto and Research Professor of Scientific Statecraft at the Institute of World Politics in Washington DC.

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E.U. Investigates Meta Over Addictive Social Media Effects on Children

The American tech giant’s platforms, Facebook and Instagram, may “exploit the weaknesses and inexperience of minors,” the European Commission said.

By Adam Satariano

Adam Satariano, a technology correspondent based in London, covers digital policy.

European Union regulators on Thursday opened investigations into the American tech giant Meta for the potentially addictive effects Instagram and Facebook have on children, an action with far-reaching implications because it cuts to the core of how the company’s products are designed.

Meta’s products may “exploit the weaknesses and inexperience of minors” to create behavioral dependencies that threaten their mental well-being, the European Commission, the executive branch of the 27-member bloc, said in a statement. E.U. regulators could ultimately fine Meta up to 6 percent of its global revenue, which was $135 billion last year, as well as force other product changes.

The investigations are part of a growing effort by governments around the world to rein in services like Instagram and TikTok to protect minors. Meta has for years faced criticism that its products and recommendation algorithms are fine-tuned to hook children. In October, three dozen states in the United States sued Meta for using “psychologically manipulative product features” to lure children, in violation of consumer protection laws.

E.U. regulators said they had been in touch with U.S. counterparts about the investigations announced on Thursday. The regulators said Meta could be in violation of the Digital Services Act, a law approved in 2022 that requires large online services to more aggressively police their platforms for illicit content and have policies in place to mitigate risks toward children. People younger than 13 are not supposed to able to sign up for an account, but E.U. investigators said they would scrutinize the company’s age-verification tools as part of their investigation.

“We will now investigate in-depth the potential addictive and ‘rabbit hole’ effects of the platforms, the effectiveness of their age verification tools and the level of privacy afforded to minors in the functioning of recommender systems,” Thierry Breton, the European Union’s internal markets commissioner, who is overseeing the investigations, said in a statement. “We are sparing no effort to protect our children.”

On Thursday, Meta said its social media services were safe for young people, noting features that let parents and children set time limits on how much they use Instagram or Facebook. Teenagers are also defaulted into more restrictive content and recommendation settings. Advertisers are barred from showing targeted ads to underage users based on their activity on Meta’s apps.

“We want young people to have safe, age-appropriate experiences online and have spent a decade developing more than 50 tools and policies designed to protect them,” Meta said in a statement. “This is a challenge the whole industry is facing, and we look forward to sharing details of our work with the European Commission.”

E.U. officials did not give a timeline of how long the investigation would take. But the opening of a formal inquiry on Thursday gives regulators wide authority to gather evidence from Meta, including sending legal requests for information, interviewing company executives and conducting inspections of corporate offices. Investigations of Instagram and Facebook will be conducted separately.

E.U. regulators have taken aim at a number of companies since the Digital Services Act took effect. Last month, TikTok suspended a version of its app in the European Union after the authorities raised questions about an “addictive” feature that lets users earn rewards like gift cards for watching videos, liking content and following certain creators.

Meta is facing another investigation related to political advertising, while X, the social media site owned by Elon Musk, is facing an inquiry related to content moderation, risk management and advertising transparency.

Adam Satariano is a technology correspondent based in Europe, where his work focuses on digital policy and the intersection of technology and world affairs. More about Adam Satariano

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EU launches probe into Meta over social media addiction in children

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Javier Espinoza in Brussels

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Brussels has opened an in-depth probe into Meta over concerns it is failing to do enough to protect children from becoming addicted to social media platforms such as Instagram.

The European Commission , the EU’s executive arm, announced on Thursday it would look into whether the Silicon Valley giant’s apps were reinforcing “rabbit hole” effects, where users get drawn ever deeper into online feeds and topics.

EU investigators will also look into whether Meta , which owns Facebook and Instagram, is complying with legal obligations to provide appropriate age-verification tools to prevent children from accessing inappropriate content.

The probe is the second into the company under the EU’s Digital Services Act. The landmark legislation is designed to police content online, with sweeping new rules on the protection of minors.

It also has mechanisms to force internet platforms to reveal how they are tackling misinformation and propaganda.

The DSA, which was approved last year, imposes new obligations on very large online platforms with more than 45mn users in the EU. If Meta is found to have broken the law, Brussels can impose fines of up to 6 per cent of a company’s global annual turnover.

Repeat offenders can even face bans in the single market as an extreme measure to enforce the rules.

Thierry Breton, commissioner for internal market, said the EU was “not convinced” that Meta “has done enough to comply with the DSA obligations to mitigate the risks of negative effects to the physical and mental health of young Europeans on its platforms Facebook and Instagram”.

“We are sparing no effort to protect our children,” Breton added.

Meta said: “We want young people to have safe, age-appropriate experiences online and have spent a decade developing more than 50 tools and policies designed to protect them. This is a challenge the whole industry is facing, and we look forward to sharing details of our work with the European Commission.”

In the investigation, the commission said it would focus on whether Meta’s platforms were putting in place “appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure a high level of privacy, safety and security for minors”. It added that it was placing special emphasis on default privacy settings for children.

Last month, the EU opened the first probe into Meta under the DSA over worries the social media giant is not properly curbing disinformation from Russia and other countries.

Brussels is especially concerned whether the social media company’s platforms are properly moderating content from Russian sources that may try to destabilise upcoming elections across Europe.

Meta defended its moderating practices and said it had appropriate systems in place to stop the spread of disinformation on its platforms.

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California bill targeting social media addiction in teens passes State Senate

S ACRAMENTO – In a bipartisan vote, the California State Senate approved a bill from a Bay Area lawmaker aimed at targeting social media addiction among children and teens.

On Monday night, senators approved Senate Bill 976 by State Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) on a 35-2 vote. The bill now goes onto the Assembly for consideration.

"Studies show that once a young person has a social media addiction, they experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. But social media companies have been unwilling to voluntarily change their practices," Skinner said in a statement . "With SB 976, the state Senate has sent a clear message: When social media companies won't act, it's our responsibility to protect our children."

Skinner's office cited figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that noted children spend six to 14 hours per day in front of a screen, much of it on social media. A review published in the Journal of Behavioral Sciences linked social media addition among youth to negative health effects, including higher rates of depression, anxiety, lack of sleep and low self-esteem.

Under the bill, which is also known as the "Protecting our Kids From Social Media Addiction Act," platforms would be prohibited from sending an "addictive" social media feed to a minor without consent from a parent or guardian.

Social media apps would also be prohibited from sending notifications to minors between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. during the school year (defined in the legislation as weekdays between September and May) and between midnight and 6 a.m. throughout the year.

The bill also would mandate platforms from setting a default time limit of one hour that can be adjusted by parents and that the default setting for a minor's account be "private."

SB976 has multiple sponsors, including California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Public Health Advocates and the Association of California School Administrators. The bill is also being supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

In a separate statement , Bonta said the bill "puts control back in the hands of parents and children."

"Our children and teens are experiencing a public health crisis, caused by social media companies in their thirst for profits. In California, we take mental health seriously, we take children's online safety seriously - and we know that we don't have a minute to waste to protect our kids. In California, we move fast and fix things," the attorney general went on to say.

Bonta is among 33 attorneys general that have joined in a lawsuit against Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta alleging the social media platforms kept teenagers engaged for as long as possible to gather personal data and sell it to advertisers.

If approved, SB976 would be the first such law in the nation aimed at addressing youth social media addiction. One other state, New York, has introduced similar legislation.

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Social media addiction leads to intellectual disorder, depression, anxiety

Youths are urged to prioritise engagement in physical activities.

Dr Adamu Babaji, a Neuropsychiatrist, at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Teaching Hospital (ATBU-TH), Bauchi, has said that frequent social media use increases the risk of mental health disorders.

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Babaji stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Thursday in Bauchi. He said that social media users stand the risk of developing mental disorders as such they should prioritise engagement in physical activities.

According to Babaji, persistent engagement in social media contributes to psychiatric cases, especially among the youth. He said that studies had established a strong link between heavy social media use and increased risk of depression, anxiety, and loneliness, among others.

The medical expert, therefore, cautioned people against adverse social media use to improve their mental health.

“Social media users should be moderate in their activities.

“Social media is another leading cause of intellectual disorder. Users tend to withdraw from social activities, and engagement, and become isolated and attached to their gadgets.

“This is not healthy as social interaction is good for mental health,” he said.

Babaji also urged parents and guardians to counsel their wards on the use of social media to limit the risk.

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California bill targeting social media addiction in teens passes State Senate

In a bipartisan vote, the California State Senate approved a bill from a Bay Area lawmaker aimed at targeting social media addiction among children and teens.

On Monday night, senators approved  Senate Bill 976  by State Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) on a 35-2 vote. The bill now goes onto the Assembly for consideration.

"Studies show that once a young person has a social media addiction, they experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. But social media companies have been unwilling to voluntarily change their practices," Skinner  said in a statement . "With SB 976, the state Senate has sent a clear message: When social media companies won't act, it's our responsibility to protect our children."

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