The Mediating Role of Social Media Disorder in the Relationship of Experiential Avoidance with Psychological Symptoms

Abstract

Experiential avoidance (EA) is an important process and risk factor in behavioral disorders. This studyaims to examine the mediating effect of social media disorder on the relationship of EA with negativepsychological symptoms (depression, anxiety, and stress). The study group consists of a total of 333undergraduate students, 86 males (25.8%) and 247 females (74.2%). Mediation has been tested usingstructural equation modeling (SEM) with bootstrapping. Significant zero-order correlations have beenfound among the involved variables, as well as mediating effects from distress aversion (β = .09, p < .001,95% CI = .10 .06), repression/denial (β = .07, p < .001, 95% CI = .08 .05), and behavioral avoidance (β = -.05,p < .05, 95% CI = -.06 .05) to indirectly predict psychological symptoms through partial mediation of socialmedia disorder scores, as presumed. The results have the potential to contribute to a better understandingof EA on maladaptive social media use.