Exploration of the association between social media addiction, self-esteem, self-compassion and loneliness.

Excessive social media use is associated with several negative psychological outcomes, including psychological distress and lower levels of-self-esteem. Research reports that feelings of loneliness enhance social media abuse, with individuals reporting stronger engagement to social media. However, self-esteem and self-compassion, which are considered as complementary constructs, mitigate social media use. This research aimed to explore the association between social media and loneliness, and whether this relation can be explained through the relation of self-esteem and self-compassion. A non-clinical sample of 426 Greek adults fulfilled the first adapted version of the Social Media Disorder Scale to assess social media addiction, the UCLA loneliness scale, the Rosenberg’s self-esteem scale and the Self Compassion Scale. Structural equation modeling was used, along with Analysis of Variance to estimate the role of demographics to social media excessive use, such as gender, education, age and the number of followers. Results revealed that self-esteem was not associated to social media excessive use or to any other behavior. Higher levels of self-compassion were associated to lower levels of social media use; moreover, self-compassion acted as a mediator with individuals feeling loneliness exhibiting lower levels of social media addiction. Possible explanations, future directions and the factors that may contribute to the insignificant relationship between self-esteem and social media are discussed. Keywords: social media addiction, self-esteem, self-compassion, structural equation model, Social Media Disorder Scale

过度使用社交媒体与多种负面心理结局相关，包括心理困扰与较低的自尊水平。研究表明，孤独感会加剧社交媒体成瘾行为，且自述对社交媒体参与度更高的个体亦存在此类问题。不过，自尊与自我同情（self-compassion）这两个被视为互补构念的变量，能够缓解社交媒体过度使用行为。本研究旨在探究社交媒体使用与孤独感之间的关联，以及该关联是否可通过自尊与自我同情的关系得到解释。研究招募了426名希腊成年人组成非临床样本，受试者完成了经过适配的首版社交媒体成瘾量表（Social Media Disorder Scale）以评估社交媒体成瘾程度，同时填写了加州大学洛杉矶分校孤独量表（UCLA Loneliness Scale）、罗森伯格自尊量表（Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale）与自我同情量表（Self Compassion Scale）。本研究采用结构方程模型结合方差分析，以探究人口统计学变量（性别、受教育程度、年龄以及粉丝数）对社交媒体过度使用的影响。结果显示，自尊与社交媒体过度使用或其他相关行为均无显著关联；更高水平的自我同情与更低程度的社交媒体使用相关；此外，自我同情发挥了中介作用：感到孤独的个体，其社交媒体成瘾程度更低。本研究还对自尊与社交媒体使用之间关联不显著的可能解释、未来研究方向以及相关影响因素进行了探讨。关键词：社交媒体成瘾、自尊、自我同情、结构方程模型、社交媒体成瘾量表