Literature Review: The Social Media Addiction Scale

The Social Media Addiction Scale

Tutgun-Unal and Deniz’s (2015) article directly correlates with this current research topic because they developed a scale to measure the addictive traits of social media among university students.

Researchers wanted to determine to what extent social media usage is unhealthy, and where the average university student falls on that scale. The research method used is qualitative as it seeks to understand the reasoning behind human social media obsession. Tutgun-Unal and Deniz (2015) are looking for an answer as to why social media is so intriguing and why it holds the attention of so many users for such a long period.

The Social Media Addiction Scale (SMAS) was developed into a five-point Likert scale. An increase in points from the Likert scale equalled an increase in perceived social media addiction for each individual. Individuals who scored between a certain range of points would be classified anywhere from “No addiction” to “Very High Addicted” (Tutgun-Unal & Deniz, 2015).

In this study, 775 students, holding at least one active social media account, were evaluated according to a five-point Likert scale. The media applications included in the participation standards were Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter so the results were consistent. The ages of university students ranged from 18–45 years old across three universities in Istanbul. Over half of the participants were female, with all participants being distributed across various education departments.

After all initial studies were completed, a framework of 41 items and four factors was developed. Out of all participants, the highest score was 205 and the lowest was 41. It was concluded that 59% of the total variance was viewed as being quite high in social sciences. Researchers expect a social media increase as technology grows and becomes more used in everyday life (Tutgun-Unal & Deniz, 2015).

Tutgun and Deniz’s (2015) research applies to this current study because it compares another way of measuring social media addiction. The Likert scale developed is a reference point for the researchers of this study as data is collected and allows for the comparison of different execution styles.