Needs affordance as a key factor in likelihood of problematic social media use: validation, latent profile analysis, and comparison of TikTok and Facebook problematic use measures

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Authors

Troy Smith¹ , Andy Short¹

1. University of Trinidad and Tobago

Conference / event

2022 National Health Research Conference, November 2022 (Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago)

Poster summary

The study examined problematic TikTok and Facebook use (PTU & PFU) among a sample of university students and validated a Problematic TikTok Use Scale (PTUS). PFU and PTU were evaluated using the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS) and the PTUS respectively to capture Griffiths’ six criteria of addiction. The PTUS had appropriate psychometric properties with an optimal cut-off score of 21 (PTU prevalence was 8.7%). The BFAS and PTUS were correlated, however, there were significant differences in the manifestation of the components of addiction. Further, loneliness was associated with PFU and PTU while only PFU was associated with self-esteem. The core components of addiction with the highest predictive power in the diagnosis of problematic use were “withdrawal” and “relapse”. The study concluded that while the underlying addiction pathways were similar between social media platforms the manifestation of maladaptive behaviour and the drivers for usage intensity and problematic use were unique.

Keywords

Problematic TikTok use scale, Facebook, Addiction, Trinidad and Tobago, Social problems, Maladaptive behavior

Research areas

Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences

References

1. Griffiths, M. (2005). A ‘components’ model of addiction within a biopsychosocial framework. Journal of Substance Use, 10(4), 191–197. https://doi.org/10.1080/14659890500114359
2. Smith, T., & Short, A. (2022). Needs affordance as a key factor in likelihood of problematic social media use: Validation, latent Profile analysis and comparison of TikTok and Facebook problematic use measures. Addictive Behaviors, 129, 107259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2022.107259

Funding

No data provided

Supplemental files

No data provided

Additional information

Competing interests

No competing interests were disclosed.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and / or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2023 Smith et al. This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.