Problematic Social Media Use: Results from a Large-Scale Nationally Representative Adolescent Sample

Fanni Bányai; Ágnes Zsila; Orsolya Király; Aniko Maraz; Zsuzsanna Elekes; Mark D Griffiths; Cecilie Schou Andreassen; Zsolt Demetrovics

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0169839

Problematic Social Media Use: Results from a Large-Scale Nationally Representative Adolescent Sample

PLoS One. 2017 Jan 9;12(1):e0169839. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0169839. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Fanni Bányai^{1 2}, Ágnes Zsila^{1 2}, Orsolya Király¹, Aniko Maraz¹, Zsuzsanna Elekes³, Mark D Griffiths⁴, Cecilie Schou Andreassen⁵, Zsolt Demetrovics¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
² Doctoral School of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
³ Institute of Sociology and Social Policy, Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary.
⁴ International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
⁵ Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.

Abstract

Despite social media use being one of the most popular activities among adolescents, prevalence estimates among teenage samples of social media (problematic) use are lacking in the field. The present study surveyed a nationally representative Hungarian sample comprising 5,961 adolescents as part of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD). Using the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS) and based on latent profile analysis, 4.5% of the adolescents belonged to the at-risk group, and reported low self-esteem, high level of depression symptoms, and elevated social media use. Results also demonstrated that BSMAS has appropriate psychometric properties. It is concluded that adolescents at-risk of problematic social media use should be targeted by school-based prevention and intervention programs.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Adolescent Behavior*
Behavior, Addictive / epidemiology*
Depression / epidemiology
Depression / etiology
Factor Analysis, Statistical
Female
Humans
Hungary / epidemiology
Male
Prevalence
Social Media / statistics & numerical data*

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office (Grant numbers: K111938, K111740). Ágnes Zsila was supported by the New National Excellence Program awarded by the Ministry of Human Resources. The funding institutions had no role in the study design or the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.