Social media addiction profiles and their antecedents using latent profile analysis: The contribution of social anxiety, gender, and age

Abstract

The prevalence of social media addiction has increased with the intensive use of technologically-mediated communication in everyday life. Most studies on social media addiction are based on the variable-centered approach with very few taking a person-centered approach. Since only one previous study has investigated the profiles of social media addiction based on a psychopathological model, it is important to bring a complementary view by exploring psychosocial traits associated with the different levels of maladaptive social media use, as well as antecedents of these profiles in terms of sociodemographic variables. To fill this gap, the present study explored social media addiction profiles based on a psychosocial model. The profile indicators were social media addiction, need to belong, anxious attachment, and social media intensity use (SMIU). Data were collected from 705 participants (61% females, age range 18–54 years, Mage = 30.2 years). Latent profile analysis (LPA) showed three distinct profiles: ‘low risk of addiction’ (61.3%), ‘moderate risk of addiction’ (29.6%), and ‘high risk of addiction’ (9.1%). Social anxiety, gender, and age were antecedents of the profiles. These results based on mixture modeling approach are meaningful to the field, bringing a complementary view to the previous findings obtained in a psychopathological framework. The findings could aid practitioners in the development of targeting at-risk social media users, namely social anxious young adult females with an unmet need to belong and anxious attachment, and designing programs to help them to develop rewarding social relationships and healthy social media use.