Social Networking Sites Addiction and Academic Anxiety: Exploring Their Association among Secondary School Students
Keywords:
social networking sites addiction, academic anxiety, secondary school students, correlation, regression, Self-regulationAbstract
The present study aimed to examine the relationship between social networking sites (SNS) addiction and academic anxiety among secondary school students. It also investigated the predictive effect of SNS addiction on academic anxiety and compared academic anxiety across low, moderate, and high levels of SNS addiction. A descriptive and correlational survey design was employed. The sample consisted of 350 students studying in Classes IX and X in selected government and non-government schools of Dehradun district, Uttarakhand. The data were analysed using Pearson's correlation, simple linear regression, and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The correlation analysis revealed a significant positive relationship between SNS addiction and academic anxiety (r = .696, p < .01). Regression analysis indicated that SNS addiction was a significant positive predictor of academic anxiety, explaining 48.4% of the variance in academic anxiety (R² = .484, β = .696, p < .001). The group-wise results also showed an increasing trend in mean academic-anxiety scores across low (M = 48.36), moderate (M = 56.82), and high (M = 67.45) SNS-addiction groups. These findings highlight the association between SNS addiction and academic anxiety and emphasise the importance of promoting balanced social networking habits and effective self-regulation among secondary school students.
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