A biopsychosocial approach to understanding social media addiction

Abstract

Despite the public's awareness of social media addiction, academic research in this realm remains limited. Filling this gap in the literature, the current study sought to understand predictors of social media addiction across four of the most popular social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram. Regression analyses showed support for a biopsychosocial approach, demonstrating that biological (age), social (including gender, intensity of use, need for social media, and social comparison), and psychological factors (specifically stress, empathic concern, conscientiousness, and depression) accounted for over 50% of the explained variance in social media addiction. Findings demonstrate that although younger individuals are highly susceptible to social media addiction, users who manifest empathy toward others may have an enhanced psychological resiliency against addiction.