Development of the 12-Item Social Media Disinformation Scale and its Association With Social Media Addiction and Mental Health Related to COVID-19 in Tunisia: Survey-Based Pilot Case Study

Abstract

Background In recent years, online disinformation has increased. Fake news has been spreading about the COVID-19 pandemic. Since January 2020, the culprits and antidotes to disinformation have been digital media and social media. Objective Our study aimed to develop and test the psychometric properties of the 12-item Social Media Disinformation Scale (SMDS-12), which assesses the consumption, confidence, and sharing of information related to COVID-19 by social media users. Methods A total of 874 subjects were recruited over two phases: the exploratory phase group had a mean age of 28.39 years (SD 9.32) and the confirmatory phase group had a mean age of 32.84 years (SD 12.72). Participants completed the SMDS-12, the Internet Addiction Test, the COVID-19 Fear Scale, and the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale. The SMDS-12 was initially tested by exploratory factor analysis and was subsequently tested by confirmatory factor analysis. Results The test supported the three-factor structure. In addition, no items were removed from the measurement scale, with three factors explaining up to 73.72% of the total variance, and the items had a lambda factor loading ranging from 0.73 to 0.85. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the robustness of the measure by referring to a wide range of goodness-of-fit indices that met the recommended standards. The construct validity of the scale was supported by its convergent and discriminant validity. The reliability of the instrument examined by means of three internal consistency indices, and the corrected item-total correlation, demonstrated that the three dimensions of the instrument were reliable: Cronbach α values were .89, .88, and .88 for the consumption, confidence, and sharing subscales, respectively. The corrected item-total correlation ranged from 0.70 to 0.78. The correlation of the instrument’s dimensions with internet addiction and mental health factors showed positive associations. Conclusions The SMDS-12 can be reliably utilized to measure the credibility of social media disinformation and can be adapted to measure the credibility of disinformation in other contexts.

Antecedents and Consequences of Misinformation Sharing Behavior among Adults on Social Media during COVID-19

“…Osuagwu et al (2021) indicated that persons who are not married, which included single, divorced, separated, or widowed were significantly associated with the misinformation beliefs. Few studies indicated association between health status and misinformation as well (Cha et al, 2021; Guelmami et al, 2021; Islam et al, 2020). Numerous studies find the relationship of occupation and misinformation beliefs during Covid-19 (Adnan et al, 2021 & Osuagwu et al, 2021).…”

“…The results indicated that a good number of studies mentioned that anxiety, fear, or perceived risks of COVID-19 was indicated as one of the major motivators of misinformation sharing (Figure 5), followed by the entertainment, information-seeking, socialization/, self-promotion, lack of trust in science, lack of self-efficacy, and altruistic motivation respectively. The studies conducted by Guelmami et al (2021), Osuagwu et al (2021), Su (2021), and Roozenbeek et al (2020) indicated a significant association between the perceived risk of getting COVID-19 and the spread of misinformation on social media.…”

Effectiveness of web-based mindfulness program on college students with social network addiction

“…In recent years, researchers in the field of addiction have become increasingly aware of the close relationship between substance abuse and stress and negative emotions [28,29] and studies have found that substance abuse is often seen as an individual’s maladaptive response to stress. [27] The results showed that the college students with social media addiction have a high level of perceived stress and negative emotions.…”

Latent Profile Analysis to Survey Positive Mental Health and Well-Being: A Pilot Investigation Insight Tunisian Facebook Users

“…Due to the spread of health-related misinformation and disinformation on social media in problematic ways ( 37 , 38 ), it is very interesting to target vulnerable groups like Facebook users. Indeed, the massive dissemination of disinformation on the web and social media platforms negatively effects on mental health [see for example: ( 38 )]. In addition, phenomena of Internet addiction have been reported ( 39 ).…”