Article

Social Science Computer Review

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ª The Author(s) 2016
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Media Addiction, Self-Esteem, DOI: 10.1177/0894439316660340
ssc.sagepub.com
and Life Satisfaction in
University Students

Nazir S. Hawi1 and Maya Samaha1

Abstract
The use of social media has grown exponentially to the extent of engaging close to one third of the
world’s population as of January 2016. Actually, social media statistics have been reporting an
average annual increase of 10% in total number of users. These extremely impressive statistics have
been triggering researchers’ interest in investigating this phenomenon and its impact on every aspect
of users’ lives. Our study is an attempt to contribute to the knowledge that is building up in relation
to this phenomenon by examining the relationships between the addictive use of social media, self-
esteem, and satisfaction with life. To achieve this purpose, a generic questionnaire, the Social Media
Addiction Questionnaire (SMAQ), was used stemming from the Facebook Intrusion Questionnaire.
Respondents completed an online survey questionnaire which collected demographic information
and responses to SMAQ, Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale. In
addition to assessing SMAQ’s psychometric properties, data analyses included Pearson correlations
between the variables, regression analysis, and structural equation modeling. Results showed that a
one-factor model of SMAQ had good psychometric properties and had high internal consistency. As
for relations, addictive use of social media had a negative association with self-esteem, and the latter
had a positive association with satisfaction with life. Furthermore, path analysis showed that self-
esteem mediated the effect of social media addiction on satisfaction with life.

Keywords
social media addiction, internet addiction, self-esteem, life satisfaction, university students, Social
Media Addiction Questionnaire (SMAQ)

The use of social media has grown exponentially to the extent of engaging close to one third of the
world’s population as of January 2016 (WeAreSocial, 2016). This growth is facilitated by the
numerous active social media sites, especially the most popular ones such as Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, and LinkedIn. As of March 2016, and on average, Facebook had more than 1.09 billion

1
Notre Dame University–Louaize, Kesrouane, Lebanon

Corresponding Author:
Nazir S. Hawi, Notre Dame University–Louaize, Kesrouane, Lebanon.
Email: nhawi@ndu.edu.lb
2 Social Science Computer Review

daily active users (Facebook, 2016); Instagram had more than 400 million monthly active users and
80 million daily shared photos with 3.5 billion likes daily (Instagram, 2016); Twitter had 310 million
monthly active users (Twitter, 2016); and LinkedIn had more than 433 million active users (Linke-
dIn, 2016). As for gender differences, more women (68%) have been using social media compared to
men (62%), and women on the average spend 46 min per day on social media compared to 31 min by
men (Perrin, 2015). Researchers from different disciplines are barely keeping up with these over-
whelming growths, trying to understand the different aspects of social media sites, including
descriptive analysis of users, motivations, identity presentation, social interactions, implications,
and privacy. Social media sites have their advantages and disadvantages; however, our major
concern is their negative impact on individuals especially addiction whereby users, irrespective
of their context, manifest symptoms of behavioral addiction (Andreassen, 2015; Ryan, Chester,
Reece, & Xenos, 2014). As we perceive it, social media addiction is the compulsive use of social
media sites that manifests itself in behavioral addiction symptoms. The symptoms include salience,
tolerance, conflict, withdrawal, relapse, and mood modification (Griffiths, 2005).
While addictive use of the Internet has been extensively examined over the years (Ha et al., 2007;
Hawi, 2012; Tsitsika et al., 2014; Young, 1998), researchers just recently started investigating the
impact of social media and its subclasses (such as Facebook and Twitter; van den Eijnden, Lem-
mens, & Valkenburg, 2016). In 2014, a review of social media addiction research concluded that its
legitimacy was still open for debate despite some clear symptoms of addiction, such as negative
consequences, preoccupation, and withdrawal (Griffiths, Kuss, & Demetrovics, 2014). Since then,
more research studies on social media have been published including studies pertaining to the
authors of the aforementioned review (Andreassen, Griffiths, et al., 2016; Andreassen, Pallesen,
& Griffiths, 2016). Few studies developed and validated measurement instruments and confirmed
that social media addiction is real, as users exhibit most of the symptoms of behavioral addiction
including tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, salience, relapse, and mood modification (Andreassen,
2015; Griffiths et al., 2014; Ryan et al., 2014). Our study aims at contributing to the existing body of
knowledge on social media addiction especially that social media addicts exhibit behavioral addic-
tion symptoms and which is negatively affecting their mental health including self-esteem and well-
being (Pantic, 2014).
Instruments that measure addiction to a social media site proprietary to a company do not
necessarily measure the construct social media. In addition, more and more users are signing up
with more than one social media site to engage in varying activities, groups, and networks that are
available on each one of the sites. For instance, in the United States, 52% of social media users
reported using multiple platforms compared to 42% the year before with a projected annual increase
of 10% (WeAreSocial, 2016). Furthermore, social media sites have commonalities such as social
interaction, creating and maintaining relationships, and self-presentation and identity (Kietzmann,
Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011). Therefore, an instrument should either measure addiction
to social media or to a specific activity on social media. In this study, we adopted the former
approach by adapting the Facebook Intrusion Questionnaire (FIQ; Elphinston & Noller, 2011) to
be a generic addiction measure of social media named Social Media Addiction Questionnaire
(SMAQ). The FIQ was developed to measure Facebook addiction based on behavioral addiction
symptoms in particular withdrawal, relapse and reinstatement, and euphoria.
Self-esteem was defined as ‘‘an individual’s positive or negative evaluation of himself or herself’’
(Smith, Mackie, & Claypool, 2014, p. 107). Most studies that have examined the relation between
self-esteem and the use of social media sites have showed that people with low self-esteem tend to
use more social media sites to enhance their self-image and self-esteem (Błachnio, Przepiorka, &
Rudnicka, 2016; Denti et al., 2012; Gonzales & Hancock, 2011; Steinfield, Ellison, & Lampe,
2008). For instance, a longitudinal study on Facebook users showed that self-esteem moderated the
relation between Facebook use and social capital, where users with low self-esteem benefit from
Hawi and Samaha 3

additional Facebook use to bridge their social capital (Steinfield et al., 2008). Based on the ‘‘social
compensation’’ hypothesis or ‘‘the poor gets richer’’ (Kraut et al., 2001), people with low self-
esteem, low life satisfaction, and who have few offline contacts compensate by using Facebook to
gain more friends and more popularity (Barker, 2009; Mehdizadeh, 2010). Also, some studies
showed a positive relationship between Instagram use and narcissism, where users high in narcis-
sism tend to post more selfies and spend more time on Instagram (Andreassen, Pallesen, et al., 2016;
Moon, Lee, Lee, Choi, & Sung, 2016; Sheldon & Bryant, 2016). Moreover, gender differences
played a role with Instagram use, as it was the best predictor of Instagram use (Sheldon & Bryant,
2016). A large-scale study of 23,592 social media users (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) showed
that addicted use of social media is linked to being female, high in narcissism and low in self-esteem
(Andreassen, Pallesen, et al., 2016). Most of these studies have been conducted mainly in Europe
and the United States. The technology use related studies from the Middle East including Lebanon
are rare (Hawi & Rupert, 2015; Samaha & Hawi, 2017). A recent study on 24 emerging and
developing countries including Lebanon, released by the Pew Research Center, reported that 72%
of Internet users in Lebanon use social networking sites (Pew Research Center, 2014) compared to
73% in the United States (Perrin, 2015). This study also reported that 100% of Lebanese users use
social media sites to stay in touch with family and friends. By using social media sites, they share
photos, videos, offline activities, and lifestyle. This phenomenon triggered our interest in investigat-
ing the use of social media sites in relation to how users value themselves (i.e., self-esteem) and how
they evaluate their lives (i.e., satisfaction with life). Therefore, the purpose of our study was to check
whether the relation between addictive use of social media and self-esteem exists in our sample, and
if it does, how it compares in strength and direction to those relations identified elsewhere and
especially when it comes to gender differences.
A multitude of studies showed that technological addictions, including addictions on the Internet
and social networking sites, had positive associations with stress, anxiety, and depression and
negative association with academic performance, all of which negatively affects satisfaction with
life (Hawi & Samaha, 2016; Kabasakal, 2015; Kuss, Griffiths, Karila, & Billieux, 2014; Lepp,
Barkley, & Karpinski, 2014; Samaha & Hawi, 2016). In a recent study of a sample of 381 Polish
Facebook users, Facebook addicts had lower self-esteem and satisfaction with life than their non-
addict counterparts (Błachnio et al., 2016). This finding was supported by a study of 311 Turkish
undergraduate students in which satisfaction with life was negatively associated with problematic
Facebook use (Satici & Uysal, 2015). In an experience sampling of 82 Americans (Mage ¼ 19.5), the
more participants used Facebook, the more their well-being and satisfaction with life declined
(Kross et al., 2013). In line with this finding, a German study of 583 Facebook users showed that
people who passively follow online users experience social comparison and feelings of envy, which
decreases their satisfaction with life (Krasnova, Wenninger, Widjaja, & Buxmann, 2013). Another
study found that people who have used Facebook for a long time and people who check Facebook
more frequently believe that other people are happier than they are, that others have a better life, and
that life is unfair (Chou & Edge, 2012). In a Swedish study of 1,011 participants, the authors showed
that people use Facebook to convey the best of their lives, interesting events, and positive happenings,
which makes others falsely believe they live a lesser life by social comparison which in turn negatively
affects their self-esteem and well-being (Denti et al., 2012). In fact, positive or negative feedback from
online friends can enhance or lower, respectively, self-esteem and well-being (Valkenburg, Peter, &
Schouten, 2006). In our study, we examine addictive use of social media in relation to self-esteem and
satisfaction with life by (1) adapting the FIQ to social media and verifying the psychometric soundness
of the resulting instrument and (2) validating the following research hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: There is a zero-order correlation between social media addiction and satisfac-
tion with life.
4 Social Science Computer Review

Hypothesis 2: Self-esteem mediates the relation between social media addiction and satisfac-
tion with life.
Hypothesis 3: There are no gender differences between social media addiction and self-
esteem.
Hypothesis 4: There are no gender differences between social media addiction and satisfaction
with life.

Method
Sampling Procedure
This study was carried out at Notre Dame University–Louaize, Lebanon, and was conducted in
English because it is the language of instruction at this university, which adopts the American
system of education. The study was the first of its type in the Middle East. It was cross sectional
based on voluntary participation of university students. To give an equal chance of participation to
each student, systematic random sampling was implemented by randomly picking the first student
from the student population, ordered by student identification number, and then selecting each fifth
student from the list. With systematic random sampling, it is highly likely that the sample is
representative of the population. Approval for the study was obtained from the university’s institu-
tional research board. Before completing the survey, a form explained the purpose of the study and
assured volunteers that data collection, storage, and reporting techniques would protect confidenti-
ality and anonymity. A total of 396 respondents filled out the online survey through the university’s
Student Information System. Thirty-two respondents were excluded from analysis because they
answered trap questions incorrectly, which reduced the sample size to 364 (Mage ¼ 21.1, standard
deviation [SD] ¼ 2.3). Of the 364 valid cases, 52.2% were males.

Data Collection Instruments

The survey was composed of four separate sections, including one for demographic information and
three for separate research instruments. The demographic information section included gender and
age. The remaining sections were composed of the SMAQ, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale
(RSES), and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SwLS). The amount of time required to complete the
survey was approximately 15–20 min.
The SMAQ is derived from the FIQ by replacing Facebook with social media (see Table 1). This
ensured the shift in focus from a particular social media site offering a collection of activities that
form a subset of activities of social media to the technology that encompasses all forms of social
media. FIQ is an 8-item instrument that assesses Facebook addiction and was developed based on
Brown’s 10 behavioral addiction components (Brown, 1997) and the mobile phone involvement
questionnaire (Walsh, White, & McD Young, 2010). It is reliable, short, has good psychometric
properties, and covers the symptoms of behavioral addiction. The SMAQ’s instruction of use was
‘‘The questions below are about your relationship to and use of online social media (Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and the like).’’ Responses were reported on a 7-point Likert-type
scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), and summed to indicate higher levels
of addiction. A sample item is ‘‘the thought of not being able to access social media makes me feel
distressed.’’
An initial principal components analysis with oblique (Direct Oblimin) rotation and Kaiser
Normalization was used to test the factor structure of the SMAQ. Missing value analyses indicated
that no more than 2.7% of cases were missing; therefore, the pairwise correlation matrix was
Hawi and Samaha 5

Table 1. Loadings of the Exploratory Factor Analysis.

PCA

Item Loadings Status

I often think about social media when I am not using it .666 Very good
I often use social media for no particular reason .608 Good
Arguments have arisen with others because of my social media use .601 Good
I interrupt whatever else I am doing when I feel the need to access social media .761 Excellent
I feel connected to others when I use social media .673 Very good
I lose track of how much I am using social media .786 Excellent
The thought of not being able to access social media makes me feel distressed .774 Excellent
I have been unable to reduce my social media use .733 Excellent
Note. PCA ¼ principal component analysis.

analyzed. No univariate or multivariate outliers were detected, and the data were normally distrib-
uted. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (Kaiser, 1970) measure of sampling adequacy (MSA) was 0.92,
which exceeded the recommended value of 0.60, and Bartlett’s test of sphericity (Bartlet, 1954)
reached statistical significance (w2 ¼ 1004.50, df ¼ 28, p <.001), supporting the factorability of the
correlation matrix. In resonance with another study, one component was identified, accounting in
our study for 52.21% of the overall variability (Elphinston & Noller, 2011). An inspection of the
scree plot revealed a clear break after the first component. Using the Cattell scree test (Cattell, 1966),
it was decided that one component should be retained. Item loadings are presented in Table 1. All
items loaded above .60. Therefore, all of the loadings ranged from good to excellent (Comrey & Lee,
2013; Hawi, 2013). Internal consistency was high (Cronbach’s a ¼ .87).
The mean score on the SMAQ was 24.5 (SD ¼ 9.4), and scores ranged from 8 to 50, indicating an
overall moderate level of addictive social media use. The mean score for females, 26.2 (SD ¼ 9.4),
was higher than that of males, 22.8 (SD ¼ 9.4). On average, females reported having higher levels of
addictive social media use.
RSES is a 10-item instrument that assesses a person’s overall evaluation of worthiness as a human
being (Rosenberg, 1965). Responses were coded on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1
(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The RSES contains five positively (e.g., ‘‘I am able to
do things as well as most people’’) and five negatively (e.g., ‘‘At times I think I am no good at all’’)
worded items. The negatively worded items were reverse coded, and then responses were summed to
reveal each respondent’s score. Higher scores indicate higher self-esteem. Internal consistency was
high (Cronbach’s a ¼ .86) similar to other studies (Hollenbaugh & Ferris, 2014; Link, Struening,
Neese-Todd, Asmussen, & Phelan, 2014). The mean score on the RSES was 39.0 (SD ¼ 6.2), and
scores ranged from 17 to 50, indicating overall high levels of self-esteem. The mean score for males
was 38.5 (SD ¼ 6.8) and that of females was slightly higher at 39.5 (SD ¼ 5.6). On average, females
reported having slightly more self-esteem.
The SwLS concerns subjective well-being, assessed by measuring cognitive self-judgment about
satisfaction with one’s life (Diener & Diener, 2009). It consists of 5 items rated on a 7-point Likert-
type scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). In the present study, the scores
for this scale ranged from 5 to 35, and the scale had a high internal consistency (Cronbach’s a ¼ .85).
High scores on the SwLS indicate high satisfaction with one’s life. In this study, the mean score on
the SwLS was 23.5 (SD ¼ 6.7), indicating overall satisfactory levels of satisfaction with life. The
mean score for males was 22.8 (SD ¼ 6.2) and that of females was slightly higher at 24.2 (SD ¼ 8.6).
On average, females reported being slightly more satisfied with their lives.
6 Social Science Computer Review

Table 2. Correlations, Means, Standard Deviations, and Ranges Among Variables.

Variable M SD Range Gender SMAQ RSES SwLS

Gender 1
SMAQ 24.5 9.4 8–50 0.175** 1
RSES 39.0 6.2 17–50 0.060 0.231** 1
SwLS 23.5 6.7 5–35 0.122* 0.028 0.568** 1
Note. SMAQ ¼ Social Media Addiction Questionnaire; RSES ¼ Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale; SwLS ¼ Satisfaction with Life
Scale.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Data Analysis
Using IBM SPSS 20, principle component analysis on the SMAQ was conducted, and Pearson
product–moment correlation coefficients were calculated. The analyses were used to examine the
associations between social media addiction, self-esteem, and satisfaction with life. In all of the
simple linear regression analyses, preliminary analyses were first conducted to ensure that there was
no violation of the assumptions of normality, linearity, multicollinearity, and homoscedasticity. The
identification and estimation of the hypothesized path model was performed in a SEM framework
using IBM SPSS Amos Graphics 20.

Results
The means, SDs, and intercorrelations for the study are presented in Table 2. The correlation
between social media addiction (as measured by SMAQ) and satisfaction with life (as measured
by the SwLS) was investigated using a Pearson product–moment correlation coefficient. There was a
zero-order correlation between social media addiction and satisfaction with life. This result con-
firmed Hypothesis 1 (see Table 2). In addition, there was a small, negative correlation, r ¼ .23,
N ¼ 364, p < .001, between social media addiction and self-esteem (as measured by RSES), with
high levels of social media addiction associated with low levels of self-esteem. Additionally, the
relation between self-esteem and satisfaction with life was investigated using a Pearson product–
moment correlation coefficient. Preliminary analyses were performed to ensure no violation of the
assumptions of normality, linearity, and homoscedasticity. There was a strong, negative correlation
between the two variables r ¼ .57, N ¼ 364, p < .001, with high levels of self-esteem associated with
high levels of satisfaction with life. That is, if perceived self-esteem decreases by 1 SD from its mean,
satisfaction with life would be expected to decrease by 0.57 SDs from its own mean, holding all other
relevant regional connections constant. These results confirmed the second hypothesis (see Table 2).
Simple linear regression was carried out to ascertain the extent to which social media addiction
can predict levels of self-esteem. Social media addiction explained 5.2% of the variance in self-
esteem, F(1, 364) ¼ 23.9, p ¼ .001. Additionally, self-esteem explained 32.3% of the variance in
satisfaction with life F(1, 364) ¼ 216.7, p < .001. The effect of self-esteem on satisfaction with life
was checked while saving the residuals. Another regression analysis was carried out to check the
effect of social media addiction on the residual variance of satisfaction with life. As a result, no
significant effect was found and consequently social media addiction had no direct effect on satis-
faction with life. These findings confirmed Hypotheses 1 and 2 that self-esteem mediates the relation
between social media addiction and satisfaction with life. All b values are included in the hypothe-
sized path model (see Figure 1).
Furthermore, simple linear regression was carried out to predict the self-esteem of males and
females based on social media addiction. The latter explained 3.2% of the variance in self-esteem of
Hawi and Samaha 7

Figure 1. Conceptual framework using path analysis.

males, F(1, 190) ¼ 5.781, p < .05, and 7.3% of the variance in self-esteem of females, F(1, 174) ¼
23.105, p < .005. These findings contradict Hypothesis 3 because social media addiction explained
more of the variance in self-esteem of females compared to males. Similarly, simple linear regres-
sion was carried out to predict males and females’ satisfaction with life based on social media
addiction. Social media addiction did not predict satisfaction with life for males or females. This
finding confirmed Hypothesis 4—that there are no gender differences between social media addic-
tion and satisfaction with life.
The w2 to df ratio (2.189) of the hypothesized path model had a p value of .135. This ratio
indicates that our hypothesized model fits the sample data well (Blunch, 2008; Carmines & McIver,
1981). Consequently, the hypothesized model (see Figure 1) was adopted as an adequate description
of the sample data. The root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) for this model was .061.
Thus, the acyclic model is an adequate fit because the RMSEA was less than .080 (Browne, Cudeck,
Bollen, & Long, 1993). Additionally, the normed fit index, the comparative fit index, the Tucker–
Lewis coefficient, and the goodness of fit were .984, .991, .973, and .993, respectively. All these
measures suggested that the model had excellent fit. Additionally, the computed PCLOSE (0.281)
was significantly higher than .050, indicating that there was absolutely no evidence to reject the fact
that RMSEA was higher than .500. The standardized root mean square residual value of .026
indicated excellent fit, as it fell far below the upper limit of .080 (Blunch, 2008). Using AMOS,
Version 20, for structural equation modeling, we showed that the hypothesized model fits well with
the sample data.

Discussion
The main goal of this study was to examine the relations between social media addiction, self-
esteem, and satisfaction with life. To achieve this goal, we changed FIQ into SMAQ to measure
addiction to social media and investigated its psychometric properties. The SMAQ’s reliability
analysis showed that its internal consistency was very good. In addition, the exploratory factor
analysis showed that a one-factor model fits the data very well.
Moreover, our results showed that there was no direct relation between social media addiction
and satisfaction with life, which supported Hypothesis 1. This result is in accordance with other
studies that showed that use of social networking sites had no direct impact on satisfaction with life
(Apaolaza, Hartmann, Medina, Barrutia, & Echebarria, 2013; Valkenburg et al., 2006). It is possible
that social media addiction did not associate with university students’ satisfaction with life because
the latter, as a construct, assesses the overall quality of life, which includes several aspects such as
family, friends, teachers, classmates, and employers (Moksnes & Espnes, 2013). However, social
media addiction is associated with self-esteem as the latter assesses only one aspect of one’s life.
University students who scored high on social media addiction reported lower levels of self-esteem
compared with students who scored low on social media addiction, which is in congruence with
other studies’ results (Błachnio et al., 2016; Faraon & Kaipainen, 2014; Schwartz, 2010). Our results
confirm that, independently from the culture where the study is conducted, it appears that people
with lower self-esteem tend to depend on social media more. Furthermore, students who use social
8 Social Science Computer Review

media with the intention of enhancing their self-image are at risk of not only lowering their self-
esteem but also their satisfaction with life as well. The evidence of this relation is rooted in the
sample data, where analysis showed that self-esteem is strongly positively associated with satisfac-
tion with life. Research has shown a strong relation between self-esteem and satisfaction with life. A
study that included more than 13,000 students from 31 nations showed that self-esteem and life
satisfaction correlated .47 (Diener & Diener, 2009).
In our study, self-esteem mediated the relation between social media addiction and satisfaction with
life, which supported Hypothesis 2. A study that included 881 Dutch adolescents showed that social
self-esteem mediated the relation between social networking sites and individual well-being (Valken-
burg et al., 2006). Additionally, a study that included 344 Spanish adolescents showed that self-
esteem mediated the relation between social networking site use and well-being (Apaolaza et al., 2013).
Our research results mark one of the first milestones on the pathway to understanding, measuring,
and preventing social media addiction. This exploratory attempt that yielded SMAQ as a viable scale
with good psychometric properties serves as a framework from which to investigate social media
addiction in other samples drawn from different segments of a population and with other cognitive,
behavioral, and social variables.
Furthermore, there are a few possibilities of how our research findings can be implemented in
daily life. The key is in raising awareness that can be launched in universities, schools, and families
that targets students in general, students with low self-esteem, or students addicted to social media.
Despite their complexity, prevention, intervention, and treatment are needed too.
The study has several limitations. First, the cross-sectional design does not reveal cause and effect
relations; longitudinal studies are needed to have a better understanding of the directionality of the
relations because they might be reciprocal. Another possible limitation is the sample that included
students from one university, and this may not be representative of the whole population. Although
most of the studies that have addressed online social media addictions have used samples from a
single university (Andreassen, 2015; Griffiths et al., 2014), future research should investigate other
universities and different age-groups who also rely heavily on social media. On a final note, even
though today Facebook remains the most popular social networking site, and most of the scales were
developed to measure only Facebook addiction (Andreassen, 2015; Ryan et al., 2014), we removed
the word ‘‘Facebook’’ from the FIQ to make the questionnaire more generic because there are other
active social media applications (Griffiths et al., 2014). This was applied to the Bergen Facebook
Scale also (Andreassen, Griffiths, et al., 2016).

Conclusion
With the continuous growth of smartphone and tablet ownership, advancement of new technologies,
and substantial enhancement of applications, addiction to social media will continue to be a major
concern. Our results suggest that, independently from culture and gender, there exists a negative
relationship between social media addiction and self-esteem and a mediated negative relationship
between social media addiction and satisfaction with life. As the psychology behind social media
keeps making it more and more seductive, we expect the problem only to aggravate. So future
studies are needed to keep investigating associations as a weak association today might become
moderate with time, and a moderate association today might become strong with time. Conse-
quently, future research should build on these results not only to monitor the aforementioned
associations but also to investigate prevention and therapy strategies.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or pub-
lication of this article.
Hawi and Samaha 9

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publica-
tion of this article: This research was supported by a grant from the National Council for Scientific Research
(CNRS)–Lebanon (Grant 3540/S).

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Author Biographies
Nazir S. Hawi, PhD, is an associate professor at Notre Dame University–Louaize, Lebanon. Some of his recent
publications have appeared in Computers in Human Behavior, Computers & Education, and CyberPsychology,
Behavior & Social Networking.
Maya Samaha, PhD, is an assistant professor at NDU–Louaize, Lebanon. Prior she was a tenured assistant
professor at Thompson Rivers University, BC, Canada. Some of her recent publications have appeared in
Computers in Human Behavior and Computers & Education.