College students frequently use social media, and problematic use has been linked to poorer academic performance, higher anxiety, and lower GPA. Less is known about how social media addiction relates to academic procrastination, anxiety, and GPA, or whether these patterns differ by sex.
What we did
Eighty-four traditional-age undergraduates who reported regular social media use and identified as male or female completed the Academic Procrastination Scale–Short Form (APS-S), the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS), the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) scale, and brief academic performance questions. Pearson correlations assessed bivariate relationships, and multiple linear regressions tested main effects and sex interactions.
What we found
Procrastination was positively associated with both anxiety and social media addiction, and was modestly but significantly negatively associated with GPA. Social media addiction was positively related to anxiety and procrastination, but was not significantly related to GPA and did not uniquely predict GPA or anxiety in regression models. No sex interactions were significant.
What it means
Procrastination was more consistently related to GPA than social media addiction. Social media addiction was more clearly associated with anxiety than with grades — highlighting academic procrastination as a stronger predictor of GPA than social media addiction itself.