TY  - EJOU
AU  - Zuo, Lihua 
AU  - Mao, Jian 

TI  - Social desirability response bias confounds the effect of gender on social media addiction
T2  - Journal of Psychology in Africa

PY  - 2025
VL  - 35
IS  - 2
SN  - 1815-5626

AB  - This study examined how social desirability responses confound the relationship between gender and social
 media addiction. A total of 496 college student social media users (females = 310, 62.5%, mean age = 20.15, SD = 1.26)
 completed an online questionnaire on Social Media Addiction and Social Desirability. Mediation analysis revealed that
 females were at higher risk for social media addiction. On the other hand, the indirect effect of gender on social media
 addiction via social desirability is associated with lower social media addiction, which suggests that social desirability
 had a suppression effect on social media addiction associated with gender. ANOVA results showed that females reported
 higher social media addiction scores than males in the low social desirability group; in the high group, gender differences
 were insignificant. This study’s unique contribution is to suggest that females are at higher risk than males for developing
 addictive social media behaviors. Based on this finding, student social media safety interventions should be gender sensitive
 to the social desirability effect on females who may hide their true addiction as a result.
KW  - gender; social media addiction; social desirability; college students; suppression effect

DO  - 10.32604/jpa.2025.065765