Social Media Use, Covert Narcissism, and Depressive Symptoms among Nursing Students

Abstract

Background: Students today are preoccupied with social media usage for various purposes and actions. Abuse of social media platforms may be detrimental to a student's mental health. Aim of the study:To investigate the association between social media use, covert narcissism, and depressive symptoms among nursing students. Subjects and Method: Research design: A descriptive correlational design was adopted to carry out this study. Setting: The study was conducted at the Faculty of Nursing Zagazig, University Egypt. Subjects: A simple random sample of 255 nursing students was recruited for this research. Tools of data collection: Three tools were used for data collection. Tool (I): Social Media Use Integration Scale. Tool (II): Beck Depression Inventory. Tool (III): Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale. In addition to the socio-demographic characteristics sheet. Results: They indicated that less than half of the studied students' overused social media, while about onesixth of them had a covert narcissistic behavior, and more than half of them suffered from moderate depressive symptoms. Students' social media use was found to be highly statistically significantly positively correlated with depressive symptoms, and covert narcissism, and it was significantly positively correlated with students' age and academic year. As well, students' depressive symptoms were discovered to be highly statistically significantly positively correlated with covert narcissism, students' age, and academic year. Conclusion: It was proven that all variables were positively correlated with one another, where overusing social media is associated with increased depressive symptoms and covert narcissism among nursing students. Recommendations: Organize seminars and initiatives to raise awareness about the benefits and cons of social media use. Further research is needed to investigate the effects of social media use on psychological well-being and educational programs for university students who are prone to Facebook addiction and covert narcissism.