Social Media Addiction: A Systematic Review through Cognitive-Behavior Model of Pathological Use

The proliferation of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have revolutionized the way people communicate, consume, and share information. As a result, social media addiction, a type of behavioral addiction related to the compulsive use of social media and associated with adverse outcomes, has been discussed by scholars and practitioners alike. Despite the abundance of research published on social media addiction, this literature is fragmented, and there is no synthesis of the drivers and outcomes of this behavior. In this study, we use the cognitive-behavioral model of pathological use and conduct a systematic review of social media addiction literature from 2008-2019. Based on the review of 132 papers, we propose a framework that integrates prior findings. Our review reveals several avenues for future research on this increasingly prominent research topic.