The mediating role of anger and loneliness in the relationship between sociotelism (phubbing) and social media addiction in adolescents

Sociotelism, which is defined as directing the attention of one of the individuals to his/her mobile phone during interpersonal interaction, is one of the problems emerging in adolescents. In the study, the risk of sociotelism and social media addiction among adolescents and the mediating role of anger and loneliness were examined. In addition, it was also investigated whether these variables differed according to gender, smartphone, computer ownership, daily time spent on social media and the most used social media application. The study group consisted of 610 adolescents, 368 female and 242 male, studying in high schools in the central districts of Van province during the 2024-2025 academic year. Information Form, Social Media Addiction Scale for Adolescents (SAMAS), State Anger Scale (SAS), UCLA Loneliness Scale Short Form (for Adolescents) and General Phubbing Exposure Scale Short Form were applied after obtaining institutional permission, ethics committee permission and participant consent. The scales were administered online and face-to-face with the permission of the ethics committee and the data obtained were analysed using IBM SPSS 26 software and Process Macro application developed in cooperation with Hayes. Bootstrapping method was used to test the mediator effect. According to the findings of the study, a moderate and positive significant relationship was found between sociotelism and social media addiction as a result of Pearson Product Moment Correlation. As a result of the findings, a positive and moderate relationship was found between sociotelism and social media addiction. According to the Hayes Macro result, it was revealed that anger and loneliness affect the relationship between sociotelism and social media addiction as partial mediators. In the light of the findings obtained, discussion, conclusions and suggestions are presented in the light of the literature.