Personality and Problematic Social Media Use

Social media has become popular in recent years, with people using it to connect and interact with other people and businesses taking advantage of the wide audience to make people aware of their brands. Although social media has various benefits, it can result in psychological and physical addiction. Similar to substance addiction, it may lead to mood shifts (feeling positive emotions after social media use), tolerance (increased social media use with time), salience (cognitive, behavioral, and emotional social media preoccupation), withdrawal symptoms (the manifestation of unpleasant emotions when social media use stops or is limited), relapse (people with social media addiction reverting to its excessive use after a period of no use), and conflict (social media use leading to problems in interpersonal relationships). Although there is no recognized diagnostic technique for problematic social media usage (PSMU), this study conceptualizes it as a disorder characterized by the compulsion and preoccupation to engage in social media platforms excessively, even when the act has associated negative effects. In addition, PSMU is related to depression and anxiety in young adults and children. For instance, in their meta-analysis, Shannon et al. (2022) discovered moderate to significant relations between increased symptoms of stress, depression, and anxiety in the youth and PSMU. Similar to this, a meta-analysis and systematic review by Marino et al. (2018) revealed the negative consequences of problematic Facebook use on the wellness of young adults and teenagers with mental distress as a prominent negative outcome. Due to proliferated social media use, researchers have thus sought to determine how one’s personality predisposes one to PSMU.