SELF-CONTROL AND PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS AS PREDICTORS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

Social media addiction is an important mental health concern with steadily increasing prevalence in young people along with physical, psychological, and academic issues. To reduce social media addiction, an understanding about its influencing factors is required. A total of 218 participants comprising 115 male and 103 undergraduate students participated in the study. The participants were between the ages of 18-27 years with mean age of 23.17 and standard deviation of 2.33. Participants were selected making use of simple random sampling technique from the population of Natural Science Faculty (107) and Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (111) Enugu State University of Science and Technology Agbani, Enugu. Self-Control Scale-Brief Version (Tangney et al., 2004); Big Five Inventory (BFI) and Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMDS; Andreassen, et al., 2017) were used in the study. The result showed that self control negatively and significantly predicted social media addiction (? = -.87, t = -16.93, at P > .01). The contribution of self control in explaining the variance in social media addiction was 47% (?R2 = .47). Also, Personality characteristics (Extraversion: ? = .22, t = 3.75, at P > .01; Agreeableness: ? = -.15, t = -6.63, at P > .01 and Neuroticism: ? = .76, t = 17.27, at P > .01) predicted social media addiction. The contribution of Personality characteristics in explaining the variance in social media addiction was 26% (?R2 = .26). The findings were discussed in view of literature reviewed and recommendations were made.   Key Words: Addiction, Personality, Self-Control, Social Media, University