Psychometric Properties of the Social Media Addiction Scale (SMAS) on Chilean University Students

Abstract

Background: The use and abuse of social networks are harming the mental health of university students. Objective: To adapt and validate the Social Media Addiction Scale (SMAS) for the Chilean context to have a reliable instrument to measure addiction to social networks. The sample comprised 686 university students (mean age = 28.04, SD = 8.4), 71.1% female, 28.4% male, and 0.5% other genders. Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using the weighted least squares means and variances method (WLSMV) was used for this study. Results: Reliability was Cronbach's alpha (α) 0.841. The SMAS yielded two factors that explained 53.433% of the variance. The CFA yielded very good fit indicators such as CFI = .959, TLI = .949, and RMSEA .060.Conclusions: Based on the results described above, we can affirm that the SMAS is a good instrument to measure social network addiction in college students.