A Meta-Analysis on the Negative Impacts of Social Media Addiction

Sierra Arcuri, Austin Li, George Melek, and Savannah Patsakos

Humans are social creatures, and social media can make it easier for them to fulfill that need, but social media addiction has tons of negative effects.

Study 1: Surveyed 232 undergraduate students in China, determined that social Media Addiction is associated with reduced mental health by lowering individuals’ self-esteem.

Study 2: Put 21 undergraduate students in China through an intervention program in an attempt to decrease social media addiction, which was proven successful but had a small sample size.

Study 3: Surveyed 233 college students in Pakistan, determined that social media addiction causes an increase in narcissism and a decrease in life satisfaction.

Study 4: Surveyed 1870 college students in India, determined social media addiction causes physical pain, including neck pain, anger, and sleep disturbance.

Study 5: Surveyed 998 students to find a successful scale to identify social media addiction, was successful in creating the Social Media Addiction Scale – Student Form (SMAS-SF).

Overall, our meta-analysis has revealed the awful side effects of social media addiction and hopefully causes more funding and awareness in order to decrease this occurrence worldwide.

View a pdf of our poster.