The Relationship between Social Media Addiction and Self-Esteem among Turkish University Students

Abstract

Social media occupies more and more space in the daily lives of contemporary young adults. As onlineinteractions have become more common than face-to-face interactions, social media has started to majorlyimpact individuals’ ways of living, communication, language, interests, and psychology. Even though socialmedia and internet addiction are not defined as behavioral addictions among the DSM diagnostic criteriadue to lack of scientific proof, its stages (conflict, relapse, etc.) reveal themselves as behavioral addictionslike shopping or gambling addictions. The aim of this study is to indicate the psychological dimensions ofsocial media addiction in young adults, to point out their significance, and to produce scientific proofs forthe literature, which are needed. In processing the data, normality tests have been applied. Women are moreaddicted to social media for the purposes of mood modification and being occupied. Social media addictionlevels increase alongside increases in the number of Instagram followers. In addition, fake account ownersand stalkers are more addicted to social media than others. Meanwhile, a moderate, negative correlationexists between self-esteem levels and social media addiction. The correlation coefficient increases for userswho have more than 500 followers in the categories of relapse and conflict.