Abstract
Recent evidence indicates an elevated risk of social media addiction among university students. This research was designed to enhance the understanding of social media addiction among university students by investigating the relationships between self-esteem, life satisfaction, and social media addiction, with the possibility of gender differences in the relationships. 288 university students (103 males, 185 females) from the Faculty of Educational Studies at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) done the Social Media Addiction, Rosenberg Self-Esteem (RSES), and Life Satisfaction Scales. Results showed that self-esteem and life satisfaction accounted for 64% of the total variance in social media addiction. Life satisfaction was a significant factor in increasing the possibility of social media addiction. On the contrary, there were no significant differences in life satisfaction and self-esteem, the latter exhibited no association with social media addiction. Furthermore, males were much more addicted to social media than females. An understanding on gender differences may be helpful for clinicians to expand suitable therapy by taking into account these findings, meanwhile, the statistically significant differences between the variables may contribute to predict student addiction levels in social media. The results of this study are obtained from Malaysian university students and possible generalisation to other populations should be verified by further studies.
Highlights
Social media addiction is increasingly recognised as a serious, worldwide public health concern
This research was designed to enhance the understanding of social media addiction among university students by investigating the relationships between self-esteem, life satisfaction, and social media addiction, with the possibility of gender differences in the relationships. 288 university students (103 males, 185 females) from the Faculty of Educational Studies at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) done the Social Media Addiction, Rosenberg Self-Esteem (RSES), and Life Satisfaction Scales
There were no significant differences in life satisfaction and self-esteem, the latter exhibited no association with social media addiction
Summary
Social media addiction is increasingly recognised as a serious, worldwide public health concern. An increase in the amount of time and energy spent on social media might lead to an addiction. The growing utilisation of portable electronic devices, for instance smartphones and tablets, has become one of the reasons why the prevalence of social media addiction is increasing (Yu et al, 2016). Apart from spending a long time on social media, individuals who are addicted to social media will experience disabilities and negative effects in certain areas of life, for instance, leisure, socialising, financial, cognitive as well as physical spheres (Odacı & Çelik, 2017). Excessive use of social media causes behavioural addiction, detachment from real life, decline in academic achievement, cyberbullying, and a host of other social and mental abnormalities (Prabhakararao, 2016). Intrapsychic conflicts are common among those who are engaged in social media, e.g. modification, and interpersonal conflicts, e.g. relationship problems (Griffiths & Kuss, 2017)
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