Investigating Psychometric Properties of Social Media Addiction Measures Among Adolescents

Abstract

Assessment has a long history in counseling, with scholars noting multiple benefits to using assessment instruments in determining client strengths and needs as well as establishing relevant treatment goals. However, when counselors use unreliable or invalid instruments, they gather results that are ill equipped to inform clinical decision-making. Consequently, we evaluated and compared the psychometric properties of three scales of social media addiction—the Social Media Disorder Scale (van den Eijnden et al., 2016), the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (Andreassen et al., 2012, 2016), and the Social Media Addiction Scale (Al-Menayes, 2015)—to inform clinical use. Adolescents (N = 440) between the ages of 13 and 19 completed the scales. Results indicated that each scale provides a reliable and valid measurement of problematic social media use or addiction among adolescents. We provide recommendations for choosing a social media assessment and for future research.