The Mediating Role of Life Satisfaction in the Relationship of Coronavirus Anxiety and Social Media Addiction

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic has caused intense anxiety in people and has brought many changes in daily life. Emerging adults, one of the groups experiencing anxiety, also turned to social media tools in order to socialize with others and follow the agenda, and overuse brought an increase in social media addiction. Considering that life satisfaction is a mediating variable in coping with the anxiety experienced during the pandemic and in the use of social media, it is aimed to examine the mediating role of life satisfaction in the relationship between Covid-19 anxiety and social media addiction. It has been observed that there is a moderately positive relationship between coronavirus anxiety and social media addiction, high negative relationship between coronavirus anxiety and life satisfaction, and high negative relationship between social media addiction and life satisfaction. As a result of the mediation analysis, while coronavirus anxiety had positive effect on social media addiction, the indirect effect of coronavirus anxiety on social media addiction was also found to be significant, and life satisfaction partially mediated the effect of coronavirus anxiety on social media addiction. Coronavirus anxiety and life satisfaction explained 41% of the change in social media addiction. As a result of the bootstrapping process, it can be said that life satisfaction has a partial mediating role in the relationship between coronavirus anxiety and social media addiction in emerging adults.