Moderator effect of dysfunctional metacognitions on the relationship between social anxiety and YouTube addiction: a M1-M2 thesis abstract.
YouTube is the most viewed video-sharing platform in the world (Alexa – Top sites, n.d.). Its emergence is accompanied in some users by excessive consumption of YouTube, or even the development of addiction (Balakrishnan & Griffiths, 2017; de Bérail et al., 2019; Klobas et al., 2018). Despite the popularity of this platform, there are few studies on YouTube addiction (Sun & Zhang, 2020). Social anxiety, recognized as a predisposing factor for Internet addiction (Caplan, 2007; Frost & Rickwood, 2017; Prizant-Passal et al., 2016), is also positively linked to YouTube addiction (de Bérail et al. al., 2019).
Metacognition is also implicated in internet addiction (Spada & Marino, 2017), problematic Facebook use (Marino et al., 2016), and problematic social media use (Balikçi et al., 2020). Metacognition refers to a cognitive structure that controls, organizes and evaluates cognitions (Balikçi et al., 2020). To our knowledge, there are no studies addressing the relationship between dysfunctional metacognition and YouTube addiction.
In 2020, Marino et al. observed the moderating effect of dysfunctional metacognitions on the relationship between social anxiety and Internet gaming disorder. Although studies have previously explored the relationship between dysfunctional metacognitions and social anxiety (Fisak & Hammond, 2013; Gkika et al., 2017; Vassilopoulos et al., 2015; Wong & Moulds, 2010), to our knowledge, none explored the relationship between social anxiety, dysfunctional metacognitions, and YouTube addiction. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine the relationships between social anxiety, dysfunctional metacognitions and YouTube addiction.
The participants were recruited from 143 French-speaking Facebook groups dedicated to students. They were invited to complete an online survey and did not receive any compensation for their participation. One hundred and eighty-two students aged 18 to 42 years (M = 22.4, SD = 3.73) participated in the survey.
Addiction to YouTube was measured using an adapted version of the Internet Addiction Test (IAT; Young, 1998), validated in French (Khazaal et al., 2008) and adapted to YouTube also in French (de Berail et al., 2019). Social anxiety was measured using the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) and the Social Phobia Scale (SPS), both adapted in a six-item version (Peters et al., 2012). Metacognitions were measured using the Metacognitions Questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30; (Wells & Cartwright-Hatton, 2004)) validated in French (Dethier et al., 2017). This scale has five subscales: positive beliefs about worry (MCQ-PB), negative beliefs about thoughts concerning uncontrollability and danger (MCQ-UD), beliefs about cognitive confidence (MCQ-CC), superstition, punishment, and responsibility (MCQ-SPR) and cognitive self-consciousness (MCQ-CSC).
The scores obtained on the IAT adapted to YouTube show that 22% (n = 40) of the participants can be considered as “users with a slight addiction to YouTube”, 2.7% (n = 5) as “users with a moderate YouTube addiction” and 75.3% (n=137) are considered “normal YouTube users”. The SIAS-6/SPS-6 results show that 57.14% (n=104) of the participants met or exceeded the two cut-off scores to distinguish those diagnosed with social anxiety from those who were not.
Correlation analysis were then carried out to test the relationships between the scores of the IAT adapted to YouTube, the SIAIS-6/SPS-6, the different subscales of the MCQ-30, and other control variates. The SIAS-6/SPS-6 scores (r = .252), the negative beliefs about thoughts concerning uncontrollability and danger scores (MCQ-UD) (r = .153) and the beliefs about cognitive confidence scores (MCQ-CC) (r = .224) were all positively correlated with YouTube-adapted IAT scores.
Two linear regressions were performed to analyze several predictive models of YouTube addiction scores. The analysis of the first linear regression, including, among other things, SIAS-6/SPS-6 scores as a predictor variable for YouTube addiction, shows that adding the model including the two MCQ-30 subscales (MCQ-UD and MCQ-CC) does not provide significant information (F(2, 173) = 1.45, p = .237). The second linear regression was performed to study a single model comprising the MCQ-UD and MCQ-CC subscales considered here as predictors of YouTube addiction. In this model, the predictor variable MCQ-CC is the only one with a significantly non-zero coefficient (β = 0.505, p = .008). The percentage of variation explained, coefficient of determination R², by the model is 5.11%.
This study confirms the link between YouTube addiction and social anxiety in college students. However, metacognitions do not seem to play a moderating role in the relationship between YouTube addiction and social anxiety. The beliefs about cognitive confidence seems to be one of the metacognitions predicting addiction to YouTube.
This study examined the relationships between social anxiety, general metacognitions, and YouTube addiction. Further studies are needed to develop a sufficiently accurate explanatory model of YouTube addiction. Furthermore, YouTube is evolving very quickly, which requires even more attention to the addictive mechanisms of YouTube.
Keywords: YouTube addiction, Social Anxiety, Metacognitions, College students, thesis abstract
Words I have learned:
– A excessive consumption: une consommation excessive
– A predisposing factor: un facteur prédisposant
– To address: porter sur, adorder
– French-speaking: francophone
– Using: en utilisant, à l’aide de
– The participants met or exceeded: les participants ont atteint ou dépassé
– To carry out/to perform: réaliser
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