Social media such as instant messaging (IM), social networking sites
(SNS), blogs and microblogs are an integral part of adolescents' lives
in China. Anecdotal evidence reported in the news has suggested that the
increasing popularity of social media could make adolescents more
vulnerable to being addicted. This exploratory study proposes the
concept of "social media addiction" and examines (a) whether social
media addiction exists among adolescents in urban China and, if so, who
the addicts are, what their symptoms are and to what extent they are
addicted; (b) whether sociopsychological traits (e.g., need for
affiliation, impression management, narcissism and leisure boredom) can
predict social media addiction among adolescents; (c) what
gratifications are obtained by adolescents from their use of social
media and whether these gratifications can predict social media
addiction and (d) to what degree social media addiction influences
adolescents' academic performance and social capital.
This study employed quantitative questionnaire surveys among adolescents
as the main research method, supplemented by qualitative pre-survey
focus groups among adolescents and post-survey in-depth interviews among
parents and teachers. Questionnaire surveys were conducted based on a
multi-stage cluster sampling of seven middle schools in five urban
Chinese cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Xiamen. The
final sample consisted of 1,549 adolescents, of whom 90% had used social
media. Using Young's classic definition of Internet addiction, 15.6% of
participants were classified as social media addicts. The addicted
adolescents were often self-absorbed, bored with their leisure time, and
good at using manipulation through social media for impression
management. Addicts experienced four major social media addiction
symptoms: preoccupation, adverse consequences, alleviation of negative
emotions and loss of interest in social activities.
The seven social media gratifications identified in this study can be
categorized into social, information and entertainment gratifications.
Among these, entertainment gratifications had the most power to predict
social media addiction, while information gratifications were the least
likely to lead to addiction. Furthermore, these gratifications were
found to be powerful mediators between the adolescents'
sociopsychological traits and social media addiction. Finally, the
results also indicated that social media addiction and its symptoms had
a significant negative impact on adolescents' academic performance and
social capital.
