Face it, don't Facebook it: Impacts of Social Media Addiction on Mindfulness, Coping Strategies and the Consequence on Emotional Exhaustion

Abstract

Addiction to social media has now become a problem that societies are concerned with. The aim of the present study is to investigate the impacts that social media addiction has on mindfulness and choice of coping strategy, as well as to explore the consequences on emotional exhaustion. The survey data were collected from 211 employees in 13 enterprises in Thailand. Results from partial least square structural equation modelling revealed that people who are highly addicted to social media tended to have lower mindfulness and tended to use emotion-focused coping to deal with stress. Lack of mindfulness and the decision to use emotion-coping strategy are also subsequently associated with higher emotional exhaustion. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Context and craving during stressful events in the daily lives of drug-dependent patients

“…The slightly stress-protective effect of internet use contrasts with studies that have shown deleterious long-term effects of overuse of social media (Sriwilai and Charoensukmongkol 2016; Zheng and Lee 2016). However, the association in our data was at the momentary level: it can be summarized as “during internet use, there were fewer stressors” rather than “for people with more overall internet use, there were fewer stressors.” This is consistent with findings that social-media use can buffer acute stress (Rus and Tiemensma 2016).…”

The Emotional Impact of Social Media in Higher Education

“…Social media has become a vital and integral part of peoples' lives in today's digital age. Although social media provides significant benefits in many aspects, it is crucial to understand the negative impacts that it causes as well (Sriwilai & Charoensukmongkol, 2016). Anxiety and depression are psychological states that a person can experience where there is a stressor(s) present.…”

“…Subsequently, social media platforms were found to be to have no relationship with one's feeling of deep and meaningful social connectedness. Sriwilai & Charoensukmongkol (2016) found that those "who are addicted to social media may spend most of their time on their social media activities in order to help them forget about the problem that they are experiencing instead of trying to think about how to face the said problem" (p.433). Emotion-focused coping does not provide adequate coping, as it only allows individuals to divert their attention from stress temporarily (Chang, 2012).…”

Understanding the Relationship between Smartphone Addiction and Well-Being: The Mediation of Mindfulnessand Moderation of Hedonic Apps

“…For example, mindfulness has been demonstrated to reduce mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, negative emotions, and loneliness [113,114] and increase well-being in self-esteem, life satisfaction, and positive emotions [114]. Moreover, researchers have reported a relationship between technology addiction and mindfulness, for example, social media addiction negatively impacts mindfulness Page 6087 [115]. Further, because individuals with higher levels of mindfulness utilize more adaptive coping strategies when faced with stressful events [114], these positive coping strategies enable them to modify the relationship with their addictive behavior and enhance their wellbeing [116].…”