Social media addiction: associations with attachment style, mental distress, and personality – BMC Psychiatry
Background Social media bring not only benefits but also downsides, such as addictive behavior. While an ambivalent closed insecure attachment style has been prominently linked with internet and smartphone addiction, a similar analysis for social media addiction is still pending. This study aims to explore social media addiction, focusing on variations in attachment style, mental distress, and personality between students with and without problematic social media use. Additionally, it investigates whether a specific attachment style is connected to social media addiction. Methods Data were collected from 571 college students (mean age = 23.61, SD = 5.00, 65.5% female; response rate = 20.06%) via an online survey administered to all enrolled students of Sigmund Freud PrivatUniversity Vienna. The Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS) differentiated between students addicted and not addicted to social media. Attachment style was gauged using the Bielefeld Partnership Expectations Qu