Relationship between perceived social media addiction and social media applications frequency usage among university students

Abstract

AbstractThe study adds to the literature by analyzing data from Kuwait University, a public university in the Gulf region of the Middle East, where research in the area of social media is relatively new. The study is the first to quantify the relationship of different social media applications frequency usage with perceived social media addiction among university students. Specifically, the relationship between gender, area of study, social media applications frequency usage, and the social media addiction as self‐perceived were quantified. A total of 380 university students were asked how often they use the following applications: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat, and WhatsApp. The response rate was 85%, with 322 students responding to the survey that was handed out as a hard copy. The data were collected by picking random classes to implement random sampling. Descriptive results indicated that around 70% of students believed they were addicted to social media somewhere between 75 and 100%. This was followed by utilizing multiple hierarchical regression for data analysis. Results indicated a significant relationship between the area of study (science, engineering, and social sciences), gender, and social media applications of Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Female students perceived themselves as about 5% more addicted to social media. Social science and engineering students perceived themselves as about 17% and 12% more addicted than science students, respectively. Furthermore, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter contributed up to about 12%, 11%, and 10%, respectively, to the perceived social media addiction.