Social Media Addiction and the Association with Self-Esteem among Adolescents in Rural Areas of Indonesia

Abstract

The use of social media has increased significantly in recent years, particularly among adolescents and this has triggered an upsurge in research into the connection between social media and self-esteem. However, there has been little attention paid to the association between social media and self-esteem in adolescents in rural areas, an oversight this study will address – focusing on adolescents in rural areas of Indonesia. This descriptive correlational study was conducted in 2018 at two senior high school in rural area of Bandung, West Java. Disproportion stratified random sampling was used to select the sample. Social Media Addiction Scale-Student Form Questionnaires (SMAS-SF) and Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale were used to collect the data. Pearson Product Moment correlation was performed to test the relationship between social media addiction and self-esteem. A total of 340 students joined our study, of which 59.7% were female. About 57.6% of the respondents felt discomfort when they had to reduce time spent using social media and 77.6% were addicted to using social media. 57.1% of the respondents have low self-esteem. There was a moderate positive relationship between addiction to social media and self-esteem among adolescents in rural area (r=0.418, p<0.05). This study suggest that social media addiction was correlated with self-esteem, for future studies could be considering gender difference to have better insight. Healthcare professional needs to design an intervention utilize social media to promote self-esteem among adolescents.
 
 Keywords: social media, self-esteem, adolescents