Social Media Addiction, Personality Factors and Fear of Negative Evaluation in a Sample of Young Adults
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The study entitled Social media addiction, personality factors and fear of negative evaluation in a sample of young adults is an interesting work investigating important research questions.
The authors precisely define the aim of their research: "the aim of our study was to investigate several potential contributors to the addiction to social media, namely, self-esteem, fear of negative e evaluation, sensation seeking and five personality variables" It is particularly important that the researchers also pay attention to differences according to personality types.
Presentation of the theoretical background (Introduction/ Literature review). The presentation of the psychological background is done in a precise and relevant manner in the sense of the literature. Along with this, the reviewer sees two elements that need to be improved in the literature review. One is the lack of definitions: what is social media, what are social media sites. The literature of network communication defines them based on Kaplan – Haenlein (2010) and Ellison – boyd (2007).
The other element is the lack of presentation of a significant theory that could have been raised in the research. This is Festinger's theory of social comparison (1954), which has been adapted by many empirical studies to use of social media sites (Vogel, E. A. Rose, J. P., Roberts, L. R., & Eckles, K. 2014,. De Vries, D. A., & Kühne, R. 2015 , Yang, C.C. 2016).
The research method is the survey, which corresponds to the research goal. In the present implementation, the reviewer sees two problems with the survey.
One of them is sampling: the study does not describe the sampling process precisely. The authors guess that the questionnaire was shared on social media platforms, and they mention Facebook as one of them. "The public link was shared on websites and special Internet communication platforms (e.g., Facebook)" This is usually called "convenience sampling" in the literature, its results are not balanced and therefore cannot be generalized.
The other problem is that, in terms of quantitative empirical research, it is necessary to formulate a hypothesis or hypotheses in addition to the research questions. This is missing from the study.
The size of the sampling is adequate (N = 250), although it is not very large compared to the time interval: "between October 2022 and January 2023".
The analysis of the results is acceptable. What is missing from the section on the interpretation of the data is the presentation of the general media usage habits of Hungarian university students. By explaining the relevant data, the context of the interpretation would become more precise.
I recommend the study for publication with the proposed modification.
Author Response
22.02.2024
Manuscript ID: youth-2871829Type of manuscript: ArticleTitle: Social media addiction, personality factors and fear of negative evaluation in a sample of young adults
Dear Editor;
Thank you for providing us the opportunity to further impove the quality of our paper.
Please find our responses to each of the Reviewers’ comments.
Reviewer 1:
The study entitled Social media addiction, personality factors and fear of negative evaluation in a sample of young adults is an interesting work investigating important research questions.
The authors precisely define the aim of their research: "the aim of our study was to investigate several potential contributors to the addiction to social media, namely, self-esteem, fear of negative e evaluation, sensation seeking and five personality variables" It is particularly important that the researchers also pay attention to differences according to personality types.
Presentation of the theoretical background (Introduction/ Literature review). The presentation of the psychological background is done in a precise and relevant manner in the sense of the literature. Along with this, the reviewer sees two elements that need to be improved in the literature review.
- One is the lack of definitions: what is social media, what are social media sites. The literature of network communication defines them based on Kaplan – Haenlein (2010) and Ellison – boyd (2007).
RE: Thank you for this suggestion, we have added the concepts and research findings of these authors (lines 46-60).
- The other element is the lack of presentation of a significant theory that could have been raised in the research. This is Festinger's theory of social comparison (1954), which has been adapted by many empirical studies to use of social media sites (Vogel, E. A. Rose, J. P., Roberts, L. R., & Eckles, K. 2014,. De Vries, D. A., & Kühne, R. 2015 , Yang, C.C. 2016).
RE: Thank you for these useful suggestions. We have added Festinger’s theory and other resources to the text (lines 81-90).
The research method is the survey, which corresponds to the research goal. In the present implementation, the reviewer sees two problems with the survey.
- One of them is sampling: the study does not describe the sampling process precisely. The authors guess that the questionnaire was shared on social media platforms, and they mention Facebook as one of them. "The public link was shared on websites and special Internet communication platforms (e.g., Facebook)" This is usually called "convenience sampling" in the literature, its results are not balanced and therefore cannot be generalized.
RE: Thank you for this remark. We have added this information to the description of the sample (lines 166-168).
- The other problem is that, in terms of quantitative empirical research, it is necessary to formulate a hypothesis or hypotheses in addition to the research questions. This is missing from the study.
RE: We agree with the Reviewer and added hypotheses (lines 145-151).
- The size of the sampling is adequate (N = 250), although it is not very large compared to the time interval: "between October 2022 and January 2023".
RE: In Hungary, willingness of university students to participate in online surveys without any financial or academic benefits is relatively small, thus, the sample size is lower than expected. We added this information to Limitations.
- The analysis of the results is acceptable. What is missing from the section on the interpretation of the data is the presentation of the general media usage habits of Hungarian university students. By explaining the relevant data, the context of the interpretation would become more precise.
RE: Unfortunately we do not really have data about Hungarian university students’ social media use and addictions. We have added this information: “Despite the growing number of studies on social media use and addiction worldwide, their correlates have not yet been explored among Hungarian students. One of the few recent findings shows that social media addiction acted as a predictor of depression among them due to careless self-disclosure [59].” (lines 364-367).
I recommend the study for publication with the proposed modification.
Hopefully we have addressed all of the comments and recommendations and look forward to seeing this revised version of the manuscript ready for publication in Youth.
Sincerely,
Authors
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The manuscript is focused on a current problem of social media addiction. There are several suggestions, which, when resolved would improve a reader experience.
Table 3. Please justify calculation of Pearson's correlation coefficient for sex. First, sex appears to be a binary variable, which does not meet the assumptions for Pearson's correlation. Second, the paper already reported sex difference in a previous table. If sex is removed from correlation table, please remember to change your language in line 220-221.
A minor suggestion: consistent order of the items would be nice. Following the sequence of items (addiction to social media, self-esteem, fear of negative e evaluation, sensation seeking and personality) throughout the sections of the manuscript is encouraged. This is just a matter of moving paragraphs up and down in the Measurement section, and this does not affect the quality of the paper. In the same section all questionnaires have an example of questions, except for TIPI. Again, that does not affect the quality but may offer more consistency.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
One more round of editing would help with small errors, like in line 11 (59-2 instead of 59.2) or line 9 (e evaluation).
Author Response
22.02.2024
Manuscript ID: youth-2871829Type of manuscript: ArticleTitle: Social media addiction, personality factors and fear of negative evaluation in a sample of young adults
Dear Editor;
Thank you for providing us the opportunity to further impove the quality of our paper.
Please find our responses to each of the Reviewers’ comments.
Reviewer 2:
The manuscript is focused on a current problem of social media addiction. There are several suggestions, which, when resolved would improve a reader experience.
- Table 3. Please justify calculation of Pearson's correlation coefficient for sex. First, sex appears to be a binary variable, which does not meet the assumptions for Pearson's correlation.
RE: We have removed this line as requested.
- Second, the paper already reported sex difference in a previous table. If sex is removed from correlation table, please remember to change your language in line 220-221.
RE: We have also changed the content of the first sentence.
- A minor suggestion: consistent order of the items would be nice. Following the sequence of items (addiction to social media, self-esteem, fear of negative evaluation, sensation seeking and personality) throughout the sections of the manuscript is encouraged. This is just a matter of moving paragraphs up and down in the Measurement section, and this does not affect the quality of the paper.
RE: We have reorganized the Method section (lines 147-197) with the suggested order.
- In the same section all questionnaires have an example of questions, except for TIPI. Again, that does not affect the quality but may offer more consistency.
RE: Thank you for this suggestion, we have added examples to this scale as well.
Hopefully we have addressed all of the comments and recommendations and look forward to seeing this revised version of the manuscript ready for publication in Youth.
Sincerely,
Authors
