The Mediating Role of Cognitive Flexibility in the Relationship Between Social Media Addiction and Mental Well-Being in Young Adults

Abstract

The current research aimed to investigate the mediating role of cognitive flexibility in the relationship between young adults' social media usage habits and their mental health. The data were obtained from 338 university students, 246 of whom were female and 92 were male. The participants' mean age was 22. The study data were collected face-to-face with the paper-pencil method in the 2021-2022 fall semester. The obtained data were analyzed with IBM SPSS and IBM AMOS V24 software. The compatibility of the data with the normal distribution was examined with the assumption of multiple normality. To test whether cognitive flexibility has a mediating role in the correlation between social media addiction and mental well-being, an analysis was conducted based on the bootstrap method. As a result of the bootstrap analysis, the indirect impact of social media addiction on mental well-being through the mediation of cognitive flexibility was revealed to be statistically significant (β=-0.142; 95% CI [-0.256; -0.031]). The fit indices of the model were determined as CMNI/df =2.12, GFI=0.878, AGFI=0.853, IFI=0.873, TLI=0.856, CFI=0.871, and RMSE=0.058. In this respect, it can be said that increasing the cognitive flexibility of individuals will play an important role in both preventing social media addiction and increasing mental well-being. In line with the study results, it can be said that increasing the mental well-being of young adults and providing cognitive flexibility skills in their struggle with social media addiction will contribute positively to the process. Furthermore, providing individuals with cognitive flexibility skills at the early stages of development with preventive interventions may be effective in maintaining mental well-being that decreases with problems such as social media addiction.