ArticlePloS one2021
The development and validation of a social media fatigue scale: From a cognitive-behavioral-emotional perspective.
Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- When Professional Networking Becomes Exhausting: Passive LinkedIn Use, Communication Overload, and Social Media Fatigue.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- A structural model of psychological vulnerability in the era of social media.Discover mental health · 2026Article
- The Virtual Feedback Loop: Psychometric Validation of a New Scale to Measure Digital Validation Seeking in Higher Education.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2026Article
- Social media fatigue in nursing students: the role of self-control, social comparison, and fear of missing out.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Psychometric Validation of the Social Media Fatigue Scale and Social Anxiety Scale for Social Media Users Among Indonesian University Students.Psychology research and behavior management · 2026Article
- Perceived AIGC saturation and AI content fatigue on short-video platforms: An appraisal-based structural equation modeling study.PloS one · 2026Article
- Social media burnout and social anxiety as antecedents of discontinuous usage in the stressor-strain-outcome framework.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Associations between social media addiction, social media fatigue, fear of missing out, and sleep quality among university students in Bangladesh: a cross-sectional study.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2025Article
- Examining the growth in willingness to pay for digital wellbeing services on social media: A comparative analysis.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Biologia Futura: does the aging process contribute to the relativity of time?Biologia futura · 2023Review
- Problematic Smartphone Use and Social Media Fatigue: The Mediating Role of Self-Control.Psychology research and behavior management · 2023Article
- Social media usage of chinese nursing students: Attitudes, motivations, mental health problems, and self-disclosure.PloS one · 2022Article
- A Preliminary Validation of the Polish Version of the Social Media Fatigue Scale.Psychology research and behavior management · 2021Article
- Trait Anxiety and Social Media Fatigue: Fear of Missing Out as a Mediator.Psychology research and behavior management · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Social media fatigue (SMF), which refers to social media users' tendency to withdraw from social media because of feeling overwhelmed, is closely related to individuals' social life and well-being. Many studies focused on understanding SMF and exploring its enablers and influences. However, few pieces of research administered a standard measurement of SMF. This study aimed to develop and validate a measure of SMF, and a cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1599 participants in total. Semi-structured interviews of 30 participants were firstly conducted as a pilot study, and an initial version of the social media fatigue scale (SMFS) with 24 items was generated. Then, both exploratory factor analysis (N = 509) and confirmatory factor analysis (N = 552) as well as reliability and validity analysis (N = 508) were conducted and a 15-item SMFS was finally developed. The results demonstrated that: 1) SMF was a multi-dimension concept including a cognitive aspect, an emotional aspect and a behavioral aspect; 2) the three-dimensional structure of the SMFS (cognitive-behavioral-emotional structure) fitted the data well; 3) the McDonald's Omega coefficients for the SMFS was 0.83, suggesting that the SMFS was reliable; 4) criterion validity was satisfactory as indicated by both the significant correlations between self-rated scores of fatigue and total SMFS scores and the significant regression model of SMF on social media privacy, social media confidence, and negative feeling after comparison. Based on the Limited Capacity Model, the present study expanded SMF from a unidimensional model to a three-dimension model, and developed a 15-item SMFS. The study enriched the existing knowledge of SMF, and coined a reliable and valid tool for measuring it. Besides, concluding the typical characteristics of SMF, the study may provide some inspiration for both researchers and social media managers and operators in mitigating SMF.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.