Social Media Addiction and its relationship with Self-esteem in University Students

Abstract

Social media are virtual spaces created with the purpose of improving communication between human beings due to the speed at which information can be sent either from one room to another or even between different countries, despite the fact that it has many advantages. Excessive or uncontrolled use of these technological spaces brings with it a series of effects on a psychological level, since by spending a lot of time on social networks, the user begins to think that other people have the life they want and feel insufficient with themselves, being affected their self-esteem. The objective of this study is to establish the relationship between addiction to social networks and self-esteem in university students, for which a sample of 280 participants was used, 218 men and 74 women between the ages of 17 and 25 from a public university, to whom the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale and the Social Media Addiction Scale were applied. The results show a negative relationship between the levels of addiction to social networks and its dimensions: occupation (p= -0.281), mood change (p= -0.402), relapse (p= -0.310) and conflict (p= -0.386) with the levels of self-esteem, in addition there is no significant difference in terms of the comparison of the sex in a higher or lower level of addiction (p= 0.218), which makes it clear that the sex to which they belong does not represent a determining factor in addiction.