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Date of Graduation

5-2026

Description

Social media is a worldwide phenomenon that has taken the world by storm; individuals, multimillion dollar companies, hospitals and universities alike are all similar in that there is a good chance they have a social media presence. Needless to say, there are many benefits of social media including connection and networking, however there are also consequences. My study focuses on one of the consequences, social media addiction, in hopes of enlightening individuals to the risks of social media and hopefully inspiring systematic change to make the future of social media a little less risky. I am using a scale from a previous study done at a different university to identify individuals suffering from social media addiction. For physiological effects, effects on the body, I monitored cortisol, a stress hormone, level changes, sleep quality, and heart rate. For the psychological effects, I looked at mood before and after social media use using a positive and negative affect scale. I used these statistics to look at the health of social media addicted individuals. I also conducted an optional interview with participants to get a deeper understanding of their relationship with social media and their ideas about it. I hope this mix of quantitative and qualitative looking at both physical and psychological effects will lead to more research into the topic as I feel it is very important to the future, especially to those growing up in a world filled with social media.

Publication Date

2026

Document Type

Book

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Psychology

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Psychological Science

Advisor/Mentor

Lasater, Kara

Disciplines

Psychiatry and Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Keywords

Natural Science

The Physiological and Psychological Effects of Social Media Addiction: A Mixed Methods Study

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