Social media addiction and academic engagement as serial mediators between social anxiety and academic performance among college students

Abstract Background Social anxiety has been shown to affect college students’ academic performance. However, the role of social media addiction and academic engagement in this association is unclear. Methods A total 2661 college students completed a self-report questionnaire including Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale, the Utrecht Student Work Engagement Scale for Students, and the grade point average. Hayes’ PROCESS macro for SPSS was employed to test the serial mediation effect. Results Results indicated that social anxiety was negatively related to academic performance, only academic engagement played a single mediating role in the relationship between social anxiety and academic performance, meanwhile social media addiction and academic engagement acted as serial mediators between social anxiety on academic performance. Conclusions Social media addiction and academic engagement can explain the potential mechanisms of the association between social anxiety and academic performance, which have implications for devising intervention strategies to enhance the mental health and academic outcomes of college students.