Cross-cultural validation of the social media disorder scale

Abstract

Background: With the popularity of social networking sites, there is an urgency to devise instruments to evaluate social media addiction in different cultural context. This paper evaluates the psychometric properties and validation of the Social Media Disorder (SMD) scale in People's Republic of China. Methods: A total of 903 Chinese university students were recruited to participate in this cross-sectional study. The internal consistency, criterion validity and construct validity of the SMD scale were examined. Results: The results suggested that the 9-item SMD scale had good psychometric properties. Its internal consistency was good, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.753. The results showed weak and moderate correlations with other validation constructs, such as self-efficacy and other disorder symptoms suggested in the original scale. The Chinese version of SMD demonstrated a good model fit for a two-factor structure in confirmatory factor analysis, with χ2 (44.085)/26=1.700, SRMR=0.059, CFI=0.995, TLI=0.993 and RMSEA=0.028. Conclusion: The SMD scale is suitable for researchers and practitioners to measure problematic usage of social media in a different context, especially on the Chinese population.