Eveningness and exercise procrastination: The mediating roles of social media addiction and morning affect

Eveningness has been associated with less physical activity, increased mobile phone use, and a tendency toward procrastination. The current study aimed to examine the relationships between components of circadian functioning, social media addiction, and exercise procrastination, focusing on whether social media addiction mediates the link between eveningness and exercise procrastination. A sample of 517 participants aged 18-75 completed a survey consisting of the Morningness-Eveningness-Stability Scale improved (MESSi), the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS), and the Procrastination in Exercise Scale (PiES), and questions on physical activity, sitting time, and social media use. Eveningness and Distinctness (amplitude of diurnal variations) were found to be positively associated with social media addiction, exercise procrastination, and more sitting, and negatively associated with amount of exercise. Higher Morning Affect (alertness upon awakening) showed the opposite pattern of associations. The mediation analysis revealed that social media addiction partially mediated the relationship between eveningness and exercise procrastination; morning affect was also found to be a mediator. These findings provide an insight into relationships between circadian functioning, problematic use of social media, and exercise procrastination, which may inform interventions to promote health-related behaviours.