The Relationship Between Social Media Addiction and Psychological Distress: A Meta-Analytic Study

In recent years, the widespread integration of social media use into nearly every aspect of daily life has made it necessary to evaluate the connections between addictive behaviors and mental health indicators within a comprehensive, quantitative, and evidence-based framework. This necessity highlights the meta-analytic approach, which combines findings obtained from different samples to provide a more reliable estimate of effect size. This study aims to examine the relationship between social media addiction and psychological distress using a meta-analytical approach. To this end, a literature review was conducted across the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases, covering the period from January 2020 to 2025. Based on the inclusion criteria, 28 studies with a total sample size of 26,671 were included in the meta-analysis process. Data analysis was performed using Jamovi 2.6.23, an open-source and free software. An examination of the descriptive characteristics of the included studies revealed that 35.7% of the publications were published in 2024, 21.4% were conducted in China, and 60.7% were indexed in SSCI. According to the random-effects model, a moderate effect (r = 0.382) was found between social media addiction and psychological distress within a 95% confidence interval. In other words, higher levels of social media addiction were associated with increased levels of psychological distress, including symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Therefore, the findings of this study highlight the importance of preventive interventions and awareness programs at both individual and societal levels to protect the mental health of social media users.