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This study seeks to explore the impact of “fear of missing out” (FOMO) and “psychological enhancement” (PE) on addiction to social media applications, subsequently influencing users' life satisfaction and continuous usage intention.

This research involved the administration of two sets of questionnaires during distinct periods: December 15 to December 30, 2022 and August 26 to September 2, 2023. The participants were college students from three universities in China, and the data collection utilized the “Questionnaire Star” platform. Only responses deemed valid and consistent were included in the subsequent statistical analysis. A total of 1,108 valid samples were used for the final analysis. Analyses including reliability, validity, path analysis, structural equation modeling, mediation effects and moderation effects were conducted using SPSS and AMOS software.

The study revealed that both FOMO and PE exerted positive influences on users' addiction to social media applications. Furthermore, this addiction was found to have a negative effect on users' life satisfaction while simultaneously contributing positively to their intention to continue using these platforms. The mediating effect of social media application addiction and the moderating impact of self-regulation were also substantiated through the analysis.

Firstly, it is important to note that the research population of this study is limited to college students, which may limit its generalizability and representativeness. Although college students are a group known for their familiarity with and frequent use of smartphones and social media apps, the findings may not fully capture the behaviors of social media app users in other age groups. To enhance the understanding of social media app addiction across different age groups, future studies should consider expanding the research population and conducting multi-group difference analyses. Secondly, while focusing on specific users within a particular region can minimize unexplained variance in model estimation, it may also restrict the broader applicability of the study results. Therefore, future studies should consider testing the research model with diverse groups from different regions and cultural backgrounds. This approach will provide valuable insights into how social media app addiction may vary across various contexts, thereby enriching our understanding of this phenomenon.

Our findings reveal that in the “attention economy” environment shaped by addiction, social media app managers should leverage technology to swiftly and accurately target audiences, attract them to their platforms and cultivate long-term relationships. Encouraging users to develop new beneficial habits through app-specific functions and precise services will foster continuous usage and unlock revenue and marketing opportunities for app companies.

Despite the extensive scholarly discourse on social media application addiction, there is a lack of a well-defined framework delineating how addictive user behaviors can be leveraged in the marketing strategies of social media application platforms. The present study seeks to address these gaps, contributing to a better understanding of the formation mechanisms and knowledge systems related to social media application addiction. By investigating the causes and consequences of such addiction, this research offers valuable insights and recommendations for the innovative development of these apps, given their widespread popularity. Concurrently, the study establishes a theoretical basis for the concept that users can mitigate the negative effects of social media addiction by exercising their own self-regulation.

As the functionalities and features of social media apps converge, their individual uniqueness starts to diminish, intensifying the competition among social media companies. This escalating rivalry places higher demands on these companies. This study aims to aid social media app companies in comprehending and analyzing the diverse psychological needs of users. By enriching their platform features and services, leading users towards addiction and gaining an edge in the “Attention Economy” competition. Understanding and catering to users' needs will be instrumental in thriving within this dynamic and evolving attention economy landscape.

This study is designed to investigate a critical association between social media addiction and employee sleep while considering its implications for employee well-being and performance in the hospitality industry.

Based on adapted measures for the study variables, an electronic questionnaire was designed and used for the survey administered in the chain-restaurants of Pakistan. Through a non-probability convenient sampling survey, a total of 347 usable responses were obtained and analyzed for testing the hypothesized research model.

Results reveal negative associations between social media addiction, sleep quality, employee performance and well-being. The results have further shown sleep quality as an underlying mediating reason that explains the associations between social media addiction, employee performance and well-being.

The study addresses a gap in the literature by examining rarely explored factors such as social media addiction and sleep quality at the same time investigating its impact on performance and well-being of service employees. Significant implications for scholars and practitioners of the hospitality industry have been discussed while highlighting limitations and directions for future research.

This research aims to build on the pre-existing corpus of literature through the integration of the technology acceptance model (TAM) and usage habit to more accurately capture the determinants associated with social media addiction among university students. This study seeks to delineate how usage habit and TAM may be used as predictors for addiction potential, as well as provide greater insight into current trends in social media usage across this population demographic.

A cross-sectional research design was employed to investigate the determinants of social media addiction among university students in Malaysia at the onset of their tertiary education. A self-administered survey, adapted from prior studies, was administered to a sample of 217 respondents. The hypotheses on social media addiction were subsequently tested using a partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach.

Usage habit was found to be a direct and strong predictor of this type of addiction, as well as all TAM variables considered in the research. Additionally, by integrating TAM with usage habit, the study revealed a comprehensive and multi-faceted understanding of social media addiction, providing an important insight into its complexity in the Malaysian context. Although several other factors have been identified as potential contributors to social media reliance and addictive behavior, it appears that usage habit is paramount in driving these addictive tendencies among university students.

This expanded model holds significant implications for the development of interventions and policies that aim to mitigate the adverse effects of social media addiction on students' educational and psychological well-being. The study illustrates the applicability of the TAM in examining addictive behaviors within emerging contexts such as the Malaysian higher education sector, thus contributing to the extant literature on the subject.

The integrated TAM and habit model is an effective predictor of social media addiction among young adults in developing countries like Malaysia. This highlights the importance of actively monitoring and controlling users' interactions with technology and media platforms, while promoting responsible usage habits. Educators can use these findings to create tailored educational programs to educate students on how to use technology responsibly and reduce their risk of becoming addicted to social media.

This study provides a unique perspective on social media addiction among university students. The combination of TAM and usage habit has the potential to shed significant light on how variables such as perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) may be associated with addictive behaviors. Additionally, by considering usage habit as an explanatory factor, this research offers a novel approach to understanding how addictions form over time.

Social media addiction has been an ongoing topic of debate for platform developers, well-being and mental health experts. There is a limited understanding of the factors leading to the addiction of young social media users, the consequences of experiencing addiction, and the measures/mechanisms used by parents and platform providers to limit/prevent problematic social media use amongst young users. This systematic review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the literature concerning these issues.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) protocol was used to evaluate and present the results. A total of 45 studies were screened and independently reviewed against predetermined criteria for eligibility.

The results revealed four categories of young users' addiction to social media networks (social, technological, behavioural and mental). Several prevention approaches directed at parents and platform providers were discussed.

This study offers important insights for health policy makers, platform providers, parents and researchers on designing interventions addressing social media addiction amongst young users. It also provides an in-depth understanding of the conceptualization of social media addiction and suggestions on possible actions to prevent it.

With the rapid development of social media in the past few years, some dark aspects of usage have appeared, e.g., Weibo addiction. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to address the question of how Weibo keeps users hooked.

The study utilizes the netnography method to explore the symptoms of Weibo addiction and how it is formed.

First, some Weibo users have typical symptoms of addictive behavior, such as withdrawal, loss of control and general living problems; second, narcissism plays an important role in the process of Weibo addiction and has a stronger effect on content generation than content consumption; third, some users use Weibo as a means to alleviate anxiety, but they can then become more anxious owing to addiction; and fourth, the effect of comments has two sides – on the one hand, comments are one kind of feedback to posts, satisfying posters’ social needs, while on the other hand, a storytelling system consists of one post and its comments, upon which some Weibo users become more dependent.

This research is only a preliminary, exploratory study. Therefore, care should be taken when interpreting these findings.

This study should help social media service providers and users to pay attention to the risk of social media addiction. Social media service providers should take social responsibility, design more user-oriented guidelines for marketing ethics and launch more responsible marketing activities. Users should enhance self-control and better balance social media use and offline real life.

Netnography has not been widely used as an addictive behavior research technique. This study is further bolstered because it has also noticed the difference of addiction mechanisms between addictive micro-bloggers and their followers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the phenomenon of social media addiction among student Millennials. The authors use the consumption continuum as a theoretical framework.

The authors used a “media deprivation” methodology including both qualitative and quantitative measures.

The authors found that social media may exist in some respondents in a “near addiction” phase or the “social media addiction” phase according to the consumption continuum framework. Several themes are discussed.

While the sample is small, this paper is an exploratory study of social media addiction among Millennials and the first to apply the consumption continuum framework to this context (Martin et al., 2013).

This paper explores the idea of social media addiction and begins to examine the role that marketing plays in perpetuating this addiction.

This paper expands the idea beyond Facebook addiction (platform agnostic) and is the first to apply the consumption continuum framework.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between social media addiction and eating behavior, eating disorder risk, body weight and life satisfaction in university students during pandemic period.

The sample consists of 1,411 university students. Data were collected using online questionnaire and Scale of Social Media Usage Motives, Social Media Addiction Scale-Student Form, Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ), SCOFF Eating Disorders Scale and Life Assessment Scale were used in the study.

Of the participants, 79.7% had different levels of social media addiction. Body weight and body mass index (BMI) values of those with high social media addiction were significantly higher than those in the non- and low-addicted group (p < 0.05). There was a positive relationship between social media addiction and duration of social media use, social media addiction and emotional and external eating behaviors and a negative relationship between social media addiction and life satisfaction (p < 0.01). There was no significant difference in eating disorder risk according to social media addiction groups (p = 0.823). Individuals in the nonaddicted social media group had the highest Life Assessment Scale score (p < 0.01).

Social media addiction was prevalent among university students, and it was related to BMI, eating behavior and life satisfaction. It is necessary to be more careful in the use of social media, which has increased in the pandemic period. Trainings to reduce the use of social media can positively affect eating behavior and contribute to the prevention of obesity and increasing life satisfaction.

Past research has examined the extent to which users disclose personal information on social media, but the influence of fear of missing out (FOMO) or other factors on self-disclosure has received little attention. To fill this gap in the social media literature, this paper aims to examine the interrelationships among FOMO, social media addiction and self-disclosure among young users in Kuwait. In addition, the moderating effect of tie strength on the examined relationships is explored.

A conceptual framework is developed and tested by applying two-stage structural equation modeling using AMOS to examine the results of an online survey distributed to 1,347 social media users in Kuwait, 25 years of age and younger.

Path analysis confirmed an indirect effect of FOMO on self-disclosure mediated by social media addiction. Moreover, the path between FOMO and social media addiction and the path between social media addiction and self-disclosure are moderated by users’ tie strength. That is, higher levels of FOMO are more likely to increase social media addiction and, in turn, self-disclosure activities on social media among young users with weaker ties (compared to stronger ties). Overall, the findings provide support for a moderated mediation model.

Ethicists and consumer protection agencies should increase public awareness of the danger to young users with weaker ties of over disclosing personal data on social media and developing FOMO and social media addiction. Mitigation programs are needed to assist these addicted users in gaining control over their social media behaviors, leveraging social media as a powerful social change tool and preventing further damage to their psychological well-being.

Although previous research has demonstrated that FOMO, in general, is positively correlated with self-disclosure and social media addiction, the current research provides empirical evidence that these relationships are dependent on users’ tie strength. Additionally, this paper is the first to show a paradoxical effect of tie strength on self-disclosure: tie strength enforces the positive relationship between FOMO and self-disclosure in the absence of social media addiction but weakens this relationship when social media addiction is introduced as a mediator.

This research is designed to explore the relationship between social media addiction, student engagement and student retention. Social media addiction is dealt with as an independent variable student engagement acts as a mediating variable and student retention as a dependent variable.

This is a cross-sectional and quantitative research. Primary data are collected from 600 respondents (university students) with the help of a structured questionnaire. Multistage sampling techniques, i.e. simple random sampling and judgment sampling, are used for the selection of respondents.

Results indicate that for direct relationships, social media addiction has a significant positive impact on student engagement and student retention, respectively, while student engagement is partially mediating the relationship between social media addiction with student retention.

In the future, these kinds of research may also be conducted on students of different universities in Pakistan, which are located in other cities of Pakistan besides Lahore. This research provides a practical framework for the higher authorities of the universities of Pakistan and explains how the use of media positively fosters the levels of student retention directly and indirectly through the path of student engagement. It is commonly believed that media addiction is bad but the result of this research indicates that anything is not dangerous but depends upon its use, media addiction itself is not bad but if someone uses this for a good purpose in limitation then it has better outcomes. The result indicates that the media addiction of students has a positive impact on student retention. This means that if someone uses media for a positive purpose then he/she will use it as a supporting tool for success. Longitudinal research on these variables will also help to check the status after a specific interval of time.

The current study will help the practitioners or policymakers (Managers) of higher education institutions by providing practical insights into the positive use of media by students for increasing their knowledge and grades. This research can also help practitioners or policymakers to focus their students on the positive use of social media for fostering the levels of student retention.

To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, no previous study has been done to incorporate social media addiction and student engagement in a single model in the Pakistani cultural context. Similarly, the relationship of variables social media addiction with student engagement is rarely checked empirically because the research of Wang et al. (2011) proposed that social media addiction has a relationship with student engagement so that is why this is the rationale of the research is to check this empirically. Moreover, this study is an initial effort to check the mediating effect of student engagement in the relationship between social media addiction and student retention. This research is also proposing the framework of social media addiction, student engagement and student retention based on the social exchange theory (SET).

This paper aims to investigate the adverse effects of addiction to social media usage on expatriates' cultural identity change in cross-cultural settings.

A questionnaire survey was conducted in two public universities in China. Among the questionnaires distributed, 333 useful responses were obtained from international students for data analysis.

Regression results show addiction to social media usage exerts adverse effects by negatively moderating the relationship between associations with locals and the three dimensions of cultural intelligence. Addiction to social media usage impairs expatriates from developing cultural intelligence from associations with locals, which in turn affects their cultural identity change.

Research findings suggest that expatriates, administrators and educators should be highly aware of the adverse effects of addiction to social media usage in complex cross-cultural settings wherein expatriates are more dependent on information technology. The important role of cultural intelligence should also be highlighted for its bridging role in managing cultural identity change for acculturation purpose. No causal relationships between variables can be established considering the cross-sectional design of the research. Longitudinal or experimental design could be a promising methodology for future efforts.

The current research contributes to the knowledge on information management applied to cross-cultural settings. The present study combines an IT contingent view with cross-cultural study to explore the adverse effects of addiction to social media usage on the development of expatriates' cultural intelligence from associations with locals, thereby influencing cultural identity change. The research provides new perspectives to expand the nomological framework of cross-cultural studies by combining the enabling roles of information technology.