Facebook addiction and depression: Loneliness as a moderator and poor sleep quality as a mediator

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Highlights

  • Facebook addiction is positively correlated with depression.

  • Poor sleep quality mediated the link between Facebook addiction and depression.

  • Loneliness moderated the link between Facebook addiction and depression.

Abstract

Facebook addiction is considered as one of the potential behavior addictions. Data on Facebook addiction among Facebook users in Vietnam is scarce, although this is a research topic that is increasingly attracting the attention of researchers. This study aims to identify the mediating and moderating effects of poor sleep quality and loneliness in the association between Facebook addiction levels and depression among Vietnamese Facebook users. A cross-sectional study was conducted in October 2020 via an online survey. Participants received an invitation to join the study with a link to the questionnaire via Facebook. A total of 354 Facebook users completed survey about Facebook addiction, sleep quality, loneliness and depression. Results reveal that poor sleep quality partially mediated the association between Facebook addiction and depression (b = 0.117, SE = 0.027, CI = [0.066, 0.172]), and loneliness moderated this relationship (β = 0.023, SE = 0.008, CI = [0.007, 0.039]). This research not only enriches the theory of the association between Facebook addiction and depression, but also a basis for the development of intervention programs to prevent depression for Facebook addictors. Accordingly, the intervention should be paid attention to improving the quality of sleep and reducing loneliness for Facebook users.

Introduction

The development of communication services has improved people's quality of life, but behavioral addictions such as Internet addiction and social media addiction have become commonplace (Rajesh and Rangaiah, 2020). Social media addiction is referred to excessive use and interest in social media (uncontrollable behavior), so much time and effort spent on social media that negatively affects other important areas of life (Griffiths et al., 2014). Social media addiction has symptoms of Internet addiction because it is a type of Internet addiction (over participation, withdrawal, losing control over mood and usage, and preoccupation about using social media) (Ryan et al., 2016). Social addiction is a term that refers to the abuse of all social networking apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Facebook is a popular social network (Foroughi et al., 2019) and has the largest number of users in the world (Rajesh and Rangaiah, 2020). Using Facebook has a positive effect on the social life of individuals such as maintaining, improving friendship networks, sharing ideas, providing social support, forming new relationships and facilitating learning (Chakraborty, 2016), but overusing can lead to Facebook addiction. Therefore, the behavior of Facebook addiction deserves attention to research. According to Griffiths (2005), Facebook addictive behavior has the following characteristics: relapse, withdrawal, mood modification, conflict, salience and tolerance. There is evidence that Facebook addiction is linked to depression (Zaffar et al., 2015, Mamun and Griffiths, 2019), loneliness (Shettar et al., 2017, Karakose et al., 2016, Satici, 2019), poor sleep quality (Wolniczak et al., 2013) and mental health (Rahman and Ahmed, 2018). Several studies have investigated the link between Facebook addiction and the development of depressive symptoms (Zaffar et al., 2015, Mamun and Griffiths, 2019). Researchers have less knowledge about the factors that mediate and buffer the link between Facebook addiction and depression in Facebook users. Therefore, studies to examine variables that could mediate or buffer the link between Facebook addiction and depression have important theoretical and practical implications. In order to fill this gap in the literature, this research is going to examine two conceptual models in which poor sleep quality mediates and loneliness moderates the association between Facebook addiction and depression in Facebook users in Vietnam.

Depression is understood as “a mood disorder that affects the way a person feels, thinks or behaves, which impairs social or occupational functioning” (Joffres et al., 2013, p.775). Depression is one of the four serious illnesses, the most common cause of disability from disease (Sarokhani et al., 2013) and the leading cause of death from suicide (Bachmann, 2018). Previous studies identified Facebook addiction as a significant risk factor for developing depression in Facebook users (Siddiqi et al., 2018, Foroughi et al., 2019, Mamun and Griffiths, 2019). Specifically, studies revealed that spending time on Facebook and overusing of Facebook increases users' symptoms of depression (Wright et al., 2013, Lin et al., 2016). Similarly, Siddiqi et al., 2018, Foroughi et al., 2019 have revealed that Facebook addiction levels are likely to increase the risk of depression in users. According to the researchers, individuals who are addicted to Facebook may develop feelings of jealousy, which in turn leads to depression or users may become addicted to Facebook if they find that their social attractiveness is lower than that of other users, thereby developing symptoms of depression (Foroughi et al., 2019). Thus, the concepts of jealousy and social competition are the keys to explaining the path from Facebook addiction to depression. On the other hand, Facebook addicts tend to assess their life negatively, have lower self-esteem, and less optimism than non-addicted users (Błachnio and Przepiorka, 2016, Malik and Khan, 2015), which lead to the development of depression symptoms. There is another point of view that Facebook addiction leads to problems in relationships and increases feelings of loneliness and social isolation (Ryan et al., 2016a, Saleem et al., 2016) and then creates depression. Therefore, the risk of depression might be reduced if individuals restrict the use of Facebook (Hunt et al., 2018).

Sleep accounts for one third of a person's life and it is important for attention, learning, memory and emotional balance (Kootesh et al., 2016). If the quality of sleep is poor, both the body and mind are impaired, leading to some changes in behaviors (Çelebioğlu et al., 2020). Previously, many studies reported that pathological Internet use or Internet addiction was associated with short sleep duration (Li et al., 2010, Alimoradi et al., 2019), insomnia (Younes et al., 2016, Fazeli et al., 2020), tendency to sleep late (Van den Bulck, 2004), sleep disturbances (Tan et al., 2016) and drowsiness during the day (Lin et al., 2011). Similarly, problematic social media use was associated with poor sleep quality (Wong et al., 2020, Lin et al., 2020), insomnia (Lin et al., 2020) and daytime sleepiness (Lin et al., 2020). According to Garett et al. (2018), using social media for longer period of time and spending more time with social media causes the quality of sleep of users to decrease. Levenson et al. (2016) reported that individuals with higher social media use volume and frequency had higher odds of having sleep disturbance. There is research revealing that Facebook use and Facebook addiction have been associated with poor sleep quality (Wolniczak et al., 2013, Bowler and Bourke, 2019, Atroszko et al., 2018). Previous studies indicated that Facebook addiction was associated with poor sleep quality (Wolniczak et al., 2013, Atroszko et al., 2018). According to Wolniczak et al. (2013), the mechanisms of this association are diverse: First, the abuse of Facebook makes sleep habits frequently interrupted when logging in late at night and interrupting the sleep–wake balance of Facebook users; Second, exposure to light at the wrong time of day can cause changes in sleep start time, delay in the onset of sleep, altering the circadian rhythm of sleep, and causing insomnia and difficulty falling asleep; Third, Facebook addicts can develop feelings of loneliness and social isolation, which has also been linked to sleep fragmentation (Wolniczak et al., 2013). Today, electronic devices (smartphones, tablets) are increasingly portable and lighter, making it possible for people to use Facebook in bed or before bed. Using electronic devices while in bed will cause users to suffer cognitive, emotional or physiological stimulation, thus deteriorating the quality of sleep (Bruni et al., 2015). Poor quality of sleep has negative effects on an individual's physical and mental health (Hu et al., 2020). Several studies investigating the association between sleep quality and depression have reported that the poorer the quality of sleep, the higher the risk of depression (Supartini et al., 2016, O’Leary et al., 2017, Liu et al., 2019). There are several possible explanations for the link between poor sleep quality and depression. Specifically, O’Leary et. al. (2017) have indicated that poor sleep quality reduces the ability to regulate emotions and leads to an increase in symptoms of depression over time. However, some studies suggest that sleep disturbances may be an early sign of depression (Alcántara et al., 2016, Kalmbach et al., 2017). Y. Zhang, Peters and Chen (2018) explained that individuals with poor sleep quality increase their perceived stress experience, which in turn contributes to the development of depressive symptoms. The above analysis shows that poor sleep quality can lead to the development of depression through many different mechanisms. Therefore, based on the above discussion, we form the Hypothesis 1:

H1. Facebook addiction will indirectly affect depression through poor sleep quality (Facebook addiction will positively impact poor sleep quality and poor sleep quality positively affects depression).

Previous studies have shown the positive association between loneliness and depression. Wei, Russell and Zakalik (2005) has found that students with high levels of loneliness tend to increase the risk of depression because of discomfort with self-disclosure and lack of social inefficiency. In the same vein, some studies have shown that loneliness was positively correlated with depression scores (S. Cacioppo et al., 2015, Matthews et al., 2016, Moeller and Seehuus, 2019). According to Swami et al. (2007), loneliness not only directly causes symptoms of depression but also indirectly affects depression through health, meaning that lonely people often experience poorer health and in turn lead to a risk of depression. L. Liu, Gou, and Zuo (2016) explained that lonely individuals often lack of social support, which in turn leads to a higher risk of experiencing depression. The above analysis shows that the mechanism of the path from loneliness to depression is complex; at the same time, individuals with lower levels of loneliness have a lower risk of depression. On the other hand, a lot of evidences have shown that Facebook addiction is strongly correlated with the development of depressive symptoms (Siddiqi et al., 2018, Foroughi et al., 2019, Mamun and Griffiths, 2019). Therefore, it is assumed that the effect of Facebook addiction on depression will be stronger among individuals with high loneliness. Based on this logic, we propose the following the Hypothesis 2:

H2. The positive association between Facebook addiction and depression will be stronger for individuals with high loneliness.

Section snippets

Participants

The data was collected in October 2020 through an online survey. Convenience sampling and purposive sampling techniques are used in our study to select participants. Participants are Vietnamese who are using Facebook. 361 undergraduates and staffs at a university in central region of Vietnam received an invitation to join the study with a link to the questionnaire via Facebook. This university has 107 staffs and 3,000 undergraduates. According to the formula of Slovin (1960), with a total

Preliminary analysis

According to Table 2, Facebook addiction is positively correlated with poor sleep quality (r = 0.290, p < 0.01), loneliness (r = 0.239, p < 0.01), and depression (r = 0.318, p < 0.01). Depression is positively correlated with poor sleep quality (r = 0.497, p < 0.01) and loneliness (r = 0.608, p < 0.01). Loneliness is positively correlated with poor sleep quality (r = 0.420, p < 0.01).

Test of the mediation model of poor sleep quality

According to Table 3, the mediation model showed acceptable fit statistics: χ2/df = 4.484, GFI = 0.901, NFI

Discussion

Facebook is the most commonly used social networking site for people to communicate and interact with friends every day (Nida Tabassum Khan and Sohail Ahmed, 2018). Despite Facebook's promising advantages, there are growing concerns about Facebook users' addiction. The aim of this research is to find the role of poor sleep quality and loneliness in the path from Facebook addiction to depression. The findings of this study have important theoretical and practical implications.

Consistent with the

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the participants who accepted the questionnaires to complete this study.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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