Relationship Satisfaction, Social Anxiety and Smartphone/Social Networking Addiction

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether relationship satisfaction moderated the relationship between social anxiety and smartphone/social networking addiction. It was hypothesized that those who have higher levels social anxiety, who are also less satisfied in their relationships, will have the highest scores on measures of smartphone/social networking addiction. Two multiple regression analyses were run, one with smartphone addiction as the dependent variable and the other with social networking addiction as the dependent variable. Results suggested no significant findings regarding smartphone addiction; however, there was a significant interaction between relationship satisfaction and social anxiety when social networking addiction was the dependent variable. Higher relationship satisfaction and higher social anxiety were related to the highest levels of social networking addiction; among those with participants with higher relationship satisfaction, those with lower social anxiety had the lowest levels of social networking addiction. For those with low relationship satisfaction, the level of social networking addiction stayed the same regardless of social anxiety.