Social media addiction, psychological resilience, and life satisfaction: An ecological systems perspective

This study examined the associations among social media addiction (SMA), psychological resilience (PR), and life satisfaction (LS), focusing on the mediating role of PR and the moderating role of educational attainment. A cross-sectional online survey design was employed. The target population comprised adult social media users living in Türkiye, and participants were recruited through convenience sampling. Of the 750 initial respondents, 43 were excluded because of incomplete responses or outliers, yielding a final sample of 707 participants aged 18–28 years (M = 20.57, SD = 2.31; 48.8% female). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, reliability and correlation analyses, structural equation modeling, and mediation and moderation analyses in SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 26.0. The structural model demonstrated acceptable fit. SMA was negatively associated with PR, whereas PR was positively associated with LS. The total association between SMA and LS was negative and significant (β = −0.104, p = .045), but the direct association became nonsignificant after PR was included in the model. The indirect association through PR was significant (β = −0.077, 95% CI [−0.139, −0.027], p = .003). Educational attainment significantly moderated the PR—LS association (β = 0.2204, p = .0343), although the increase in explained variance was small (ΔR2 = .0061). These findings suggest that PR may constitute an important personal resource linking problematic digital engagement to well-being and that its contribution may vary according to educational context.