Facebook addiction and personality

Solitary Experience and Problematic Social Media Use Among Young Adults: A Systematic Review with Recommendations for Future Research

Objective

This study was conducted to summarize existing studies on the association between solitary experiences and problematic social media use (PSMU) among young adults.

Method

A systematic review was performed according to the PRISMA guidelines, implemented in Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed and PsycINFO. We selected studies if they presented original data, assessed solitary experiences and PSMU in young adults (i.e., 18-30 age range), were published in peer reviewed journals between 2004 and 2023, and were written in English.

Results

After duplicate removal, 1,841 eligible studies were found. From these, 12 articles were selected, encompassing 4,009 participants. Most studies showed a positive association between general loneliness and PSMU. Some of these suggested that this relationship varies based on the facets of loneliness, other potential variables, and the type of social media. No mediating factors were found. Few studies assessed solitary experiences other than general loneliness, highlighting the need for a multidimensional perspective on solitary experience in investigating PSMU.

Conclusions

Implications and future research orientations are discussed.

Negative psychological and physiological effects of social networking site use: The example of Facebook

Social networking sites (SNS), with Facebook as a prominent example, have become an integral part of our daily lives and more than four billion people worldwide use SNS. However, the (over-)use of SNS also poses both psychological and physiological risks. In the present article, we review the scientific literature on the risk of Facebook (over-)use. Addressing this topic is critical because evidence indicates the development of problematic Facebook use ("Facebook addiction") due to excessive and uncontrolled use behavior with various psychological and physiological effects. We conducted a review to examine the scope, range, and nature of prior empirical research on the negative psychological and physiological effects of Facebook use. Our literature search process revealed a total of 232 papers showing that Facebook use is associated with eight major psychological effects (perceived anxiety, perceived depression, perceived loneliness, perceived eating disorders, perceived self-esteem, perceived life satisfaction, perceived insomnia, and perceived stress) and three physiological effects (physiological stress, human brain alteration, and affective experience state). The review also describes how Facebook use is associated with these effects and provides additional details on the reviewed literature, including research design, sample, age, and measures. Please note that the term "Facebook use" represents an umbrella term in the present work, and in the respective sections it will be made clear what kind of Facebook use is associated with a myriad of investigated psychological variables. Overall, findings indicate that certain kinds of Facebook use may come along with significant risks, both psychologically and physiologically. Based on our review, we also identify potential avenues for future research.

The Development and Psychometric Characteristics of the "Virtual Identity of Social Media Users" Test

Introduction

Modern society is characterized by the widespread use of social media, which provides users with communication, leisure, work, and study opportunities. With the growth of such opportunities, more time is being spent online. These circumstances explain why we developed a test entitled the Virtual Identity of Social Media Users (VISCMU).

Objective

To develop and test the psychometric characteristics of the VISMU test.

Design

The research methods included theoretical analysis, modeling, expert assessments, questionnaires, and statistical analysis. The research sample was comprised of 285 users of VKontakte and other social media.

Results

The results of factor analysis proved the acceptability of the three scales identified in the test. Expert assessments showed that the test had sufficient face and content validity. The scales were characterized by optimal indicators of internal consistency, homogeneity, and discriminatory power. The test-retest reliability values demonstrated that the test indicators were stable. Statistically significant differences in the parameter measuring virtual identity in groups with different levels of success in adult life justified a sufficient level of criterion validity. The correlation between the test scales and the components of the factor structure of the modified test "Who am I online?" indicated its compliance with construct validity norms. Positive connections between virtual identity and Internet addiction, smartphone addiction, aggressiveness, hostility, and negative relationships with vitality, indicated sufficient convergent validity. The test has been standardized and specified.

Conclusion

The test was aimed at measuring the extent to which a person's virtual identity would reveal the specific characteristics of its impact on the individual's personal development.

Factors associated with Facebook addiction among university students amid the COVID-19 pandemic: Findings from an online cross-sectional survey

Background

Facebook addiction (FA) has been suggested as a potential behavioral addiction. There is a severe lack of research evidence regarding the Facebook addiction behavior among university students during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was to determine factors associated with Facebook addiction among Bangladeshi university students.

Methods

A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among 2,161 Bangladeshi university students during the COVID-19 pandemic from June 2021 to September 2021. A well fitted regression model in R programming language was used for this study.

Results

Female respondents and those whose family monthly income was <25,000 BDT were more addicted to Facebook than other respondents. Respondents who lost a family member or a relative to COVID-19, engaged in physical activities (exercise) during the pandemic, used Facebook for work purposes or used Facebook to relieve daily stress were more addicted to Facebook.

Conclusion

Overuse of social media is problematic as it can trigger several mental health symptoms, especially among students. Adequate and effective interventions are required to educate students about the dangers of Facebook addiction and to provide an alternative, healthy options.

A meta-analysis of the problematic social media use and mental health

BACKGROUND

Although previous meta-analyses were conducted to quantitatively synthesize the relation between problematic social media (SM) use and mental health, they focused on Facebook addiction.

AIMS

The purpose of this meta-analysis is to examine this relation by extending the research scope via the inclusion of studies examining problematic use of all platforms.

METHOD

One hundred and thirty-three independent samples (N =244,676) were identified.

RESULTS

As expected, the mean correlations between problematic SM use and well-being are negative, while those between problematic SM use and distress are positive. Life satisfaction and self-esteem are commonly used to represent well-being, while depression and loneliness are usually used to indicate distress. The mean correlations of problematic SM use with life satisfaction and self-esteem are small, whereas those of problematic SM use with depression and loneliness are moderate. The moderating effects of publication status, instruments, platforms and mean age are not significant.

CONCLUSIONS

The magnitude of the correlations between problematic SM use and mental health indicators can generalize across most moderator conditions.

Associations of Personality Traits with Internet Addiction: A Cross-Cultural Meta-Analysis with a Multilingual Approach

With a novel multilingual approach, this cross-cultural meta-analysis study investigated the associations between personality traits and Internet addiction. Articles were identified and retrieved by searching through general and language-specific databases, and thereafter reviewed for inclusion based on the selection criteria. Random effects models with the Hartung-Knapp-Sidik-Jonkman method were used to examine the associations of Internet addiction with seven personality traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Psychoticism, and Lie (OCEAN-PL). Forest plots with summary statistics were produced to inspect the between-study heterogeneity. Subgroup analysis was performed to further determine the contributions of moderators (geographic region, population subgroup, scales for assessing personality traits and Internet addiction, and language of publication) to the observed between-study heterogeneity. Funnel plots and Egger's test were used to detect possible small-study effects. A sample of 34,438 participants from 37 studies (24 from Asia) were included for data analysis. The major languages of publications of the selected articles were English and Asian languages. According to the pooled results, Internet addiction was associated positively with Neuroticism and Psychoticism, but negatively with Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Lie. Geographic region and language of publication significantly moderated the associations of Internet addiction with Agreeableness and Neuroticism, and Openness and Extraversion, respectively. No significant small-study effect was present for all OCEAN-PL personality traits, except Neuroticism. In conclusion, the Internet addiction group is relatively more neurotic and psychotic, and less conscientious, extraverted, agreeable, and untruthful than the nonaddiction group. A multilingual approach is useful for improving the search strategies for systematic reviews, cross-cultural meta-analyses in particular.

Development of an Offline-Friend Addiction Questionnaire (O-FAQ): Are most people really social addicts?

A growing number of self-report measures aim to define interactions with social media in a pathological behavior framework, often using terminology focused on identifying those who are 'addicted' to engaging with others online. Specifically, measures of 'social media addiction' focus on motivations for online social information seeking, which could relate to motivations for offline social information seeking. However, it could be the case that these same measures could reveal a pattern of friend addiction in general. This study develops the Offline-Friend Addiction Questionnaire (O-FAQ) by re-wording items from highly cited pathological social media use scales to reflect "spending time with friends". Our methodology for validation follows the current literature precedent in the development of social media 'addiction' scales. The O-FAQ had a three-factor solution in an exploratory sample of N = 807 and these factors were stable in a 4-week retest (r = .72 to .86) and was validated against personality traits, and risk-taking behavior, in conceptually plausible directions. Using the same polythetic classification techniques as pathological social media use studies, we were able to classify 69% of our sample as addicted to spending time with their friends. The discussion of our satirical research is a critical reflection on the role of measurement and human sociality in social media research. We question the extent to which connecting with others can be considered an 'addiction' and discuss issues concerning the validation of new 'addiction' measures without relevant medical constructs. Readers should approach our measure with a level of skepticism that should be afforded to current social media addiction measures.

Be Aware of Burnout! The Role of Changes in Academic Burnout in Problematic Facebook Usage among University Students

Most previous research has examined the relationship between FB addiction and burnout level by conducting cross-sectional studies. Little is known about the impact of changes in burnout on FB addiction in an educational context. Through a two-way longitudinal survey of a student population sample (N = 115), this study examined the influence of changes in academic burnout over time and FB motives and importance (measured at the beginning and the end of the semester) on FB intrusion measured at the end of the academic semester. The findings show that: (1) increases in cynicism and in FB motives and importance significantly predicted time2 FB intrusion; (2) FB importance enhanced the prediction power of changes in the academic burnout total score, exhaustion and personal inefficacy, and reduced the regression coefficient of changes in cynicism; (3) the interaction effects between FB social motive use and changes in academic burnout, as well as between FB importance and personal inefficacy and exhaustion, accounted for a significant change in the explained variance of time2 FB intrusion. About 20–30% of the variance in time2 FB intrusion was explained by all the examined variables and by the interactions between them. The results suggest that changes in academic burnout and FB motives and importance are suppressive variables, as including these variables in the regression model all together changed the significance of the relationship between independent variables and FB intrusion.