Alexithymia, narcissism and social anxiety in relation to social media and internet addiction symptoms

Mar 9, 2022International journal of psychology : Journal international de psychologie

How Difficulty Understanding Emotions, Self-Focus, and Social Anxiety Relate to Social Media and Internet Addiction Symptoms

AI simplified

Circadian Biology on OpenScience ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Abstract

In a study of 217 young adults, internet addiction symptoms were predicted by social anxiety, narcissism, and alexithymia, while social media addiction was only linked to social anxiety and narcissism.

Internet addiction symptoms could be associated with three traits: social anxiety, narcissism, and alexithymia.
Social media addiction symptoms may be linked only to social anxiety and narcissism.
The findings suggest that alexithymia may not be a relevant factor for excessive social media use.
There is a potential distinction between general internet addiction and social media addiction in relation to personality traits.

AI simplified

There has been considerable interest in trait correlates of excessive or problematic use of the internet, known as internet addiction. However, the concept of internet addiction has been criticised as too broad. Specific forms of excessive internet use, for example, social media, may have different trait correlates compared to internet use in general. The present study compared levels of internet and social media addiction symptoms in relation to three traits previously linked to one or the other form of excessive behaviour: alexithymia, narcissism and social anxiety. There were 217 young adult social media- and internet-using participants aged 18-35 years recruited from two university campuses in southeast Queensland, Australia. They completed an online questionnaire battery that included a demographics questionnaire and widely used, validated measures of narcissism, alexithymia and social anxiety. Hierarchical regressions indicated that after controlling for demographic variables, internet addiction symptoms were predicted by social anxiety, narcissism and alexithymia, whereas social media addiction symptoms were predicted only by social anxiety and narcissism. Results suggest that the association of alexithymia with internet addiction symptoms does not encompass excessive use of social media, and support the contention that the concept of internet addiction may be too broad.

Full Text

Full text is available at the source.

View full text (PDF) ↗View full text (XML) ↗View full text ↗

Alexithymia, narcissism and social anxiety in relation to social media and internet addiction symptoms

Abstract

Full Text

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the circadian biology brief

Abstract

Full Text

Related papers

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the circadian biology brief