The relationship between social media addiction and psychological resilience: A meta-analysis of studies published between 2014-2024

Social media is actively used by millions of people worldwide, allowing individuals to establish social connections, acquire information, and access entertaining content. However, excessive use of social media can lead to social media addiction in some individuals. Social media addiction may negatively affect psychological well-being and, consequently, undermine individuals' psychological resilience. This study presents a meta-analysis of the existing literature examining the relationship between social media addiction and psychological resilience. By synthesizing previous studies conducted on this subject, the research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how social media addiction influences psychological resilience. To achieve this aim, studies conducted between 2014 and 2024 that met the research criteria were selected. These studies included master's and doctoral theses from the National Thesis Center of the Council of Higher Education, as well as peer-reviewed articles from databases such as ULAKBİM, DergiPark Akademik, ERIC, EBSCO, APA PsycNet, ProQuest, JStor, Web of Science, Taylor & Francis, ResearchGate, TR Index, and Google Scholar. A total of 18 studies (n = 7107) that met the inclusion criteria were incorporated into the analysis. The meta-analysis was carried out using R Studio, and interpretations were made based on Cohen's (1988) effect size indices. Cohen's d is a widely used effect size index, and effect sizes are generally classified as d ≈ 0.20 (small effect), d ≈ 0.50 (medium effect), and d ≥ 0.80 (large effect) (Cohen, 1988). Analyses were performed based on the year of publication, the countries where the studies were conducted, and participants' gender and mean age. The categories of year (2014–2019 and 2020–2024) and age (10–20 and 21 and above) were found to be a significant moderator of the social media addiction and psychological resilience's strength and/or direction. In contrast, gender and country (Turkey and Other Countries) did not contribute to statistically significant difference. Additionally, publication bias was not detected in the analysis. As the aggregated studies demonstrated heterogeneity, the random-effects model was adopted in this meta-analysis. The results indicated that the relationship between social media addiction and psychological resilience was statistically significant (p <.001). Also, relationship was negative and of small effect size (ES =-0.23). This finding aligns with previous literature suggesting that social media addiction may weaken individuals' psychological resilience.