Investigation of the relationship between digital addiction, social anxiety, and perceived social support among university students

The aim of this study was to examine the relationships among digital addiction, social anxiety, and perceived social support levels of university students. In addition, it was investigated whether these variables differed according to various demographic characteristics, and the predictive power of perceived social support and social anxiety on digital addiction was evaluated. The study was conducted using the relational survey model, one of the quantitative research methods. The study group consisted of 393 university students studying at Erzincan Binali Yıldırım University, including 201 females (51.1%) and 192 males (48.9%). Data were collected through the Personal Information Form, Digital Addiction Scale, Social Anxiety Scale, and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Independent samples t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis were used to analyze the data. The findings indicated significant low-level negative relationships between perceived social support and digital addiction, and between perceived social support and social anxiety, whereas a significant moderate-level positive relationship was found between digital addiction and social anxiety. Digital addiction levels differed significantly according to daily digital device usage duration and mothers’ educational status. Social anxiety and perceived social support levels, on the other hand, differed significantly according to both mothers’ and fathers’ educational status. The results of multiple linear regression analysis revealed that social anxiety was a significant predictor of digital addiction, whereas perceived social support was not a significant predictor. Furthermore, the model explained approximately 29% of the total variance in digital addiction. The findings suggest that digital addiction is closely associated with social anxiety among university students and that social anxiety is an important predictor of digital addiction.