ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between social media addiction and career stress of sports science students.This research examined the relations of social media addiction to college students' mental health and academic performance, investigated the role of self-esteem as a mediator for the relations, and further tested the effectiveness of an intervention in reducing social media addiction and its potential adverse outcomes. In Study 1, we used a survey method with a sample of college students (N = 232) and found that social media addiction was negatively associated with the students' mental health and academic performance and that the relation between social media addiction and mental health was mediated by self-esteem. In Study 2, we developed and tested a two-stage self-help intervention program. We recruited a sample of college students (N = 38) who met criteria for social media addiction to receive the intervention. Results showed that the intervention was effective in reducing the students’ social media addiction and improving their mental health and academic efficiency. The current studies yielded original findings that contribute to the empirical database on social media addiction and that have important theoretical and practical implications.This study examined the relations of social media addiction and college students’ career stress. To collect the date we used a survey method with a sample of college students (N = 390) students studying at universities in Serhat provinces (Kars, Ağrı, Iğdır) in 2020-2021, and found that social media addiction was negatively associated with the students' career stress management. The social media scale developed by Şahin, (2018) and Choi et al. (2011), and the career stress scale adapted to Turkish by Özden and Serten Berk (2017) was used to conduct this study. Data were collected online via google platform. Social media scale and career stress scale is a 5-point Likert type scale. After the data were found to be distributed normally, a canonical correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between dependent and independent variables. In the evaluation of the data, the significance level was accepted as p <0.05.Considering the standardized coefficients and correlations in the I.canonical variable together with the explanation rates of the canonical variations in both clusters, the increase in employment pressure was associated with the virtual problem score.

Key Words: Physical Education and Sports, Nutrition, Mental well-being.