Problematic social media use and academic attainment in physical education undergraduates: conditional indirect associations through sleep, engagement, and persistence

Introduction Problematic social media use (PSMU) has been associated with poorer academic functioning, but the pathways linking dysregulated use with university attainment remain incompletely specified. This cross-sectional study tested whether sleep adequacy, classroom engagement, and academic persistence statistically mediated the association between PSMU and cumulative GPA, and whether bedtime social media use moderated the first of these pathways. Methods Data from 800 Physical Education undergraduates at four university sites were analyzed using structural equation modelling and 5,000 bias-corrected bootstrap samples. Participants had a mean age of 20.55 years (SD = 1.18); 62.6% identified as men, 35.4% as women, and 2.0% selected another gender category or preferred not to answer. Measures included the nine-item Social Media Disorder Scale for PSMU, behavioral and emotional engagement subscales from the Engagement versus Disaffection with Learning framework, the Intent-to-Persist component of the College Persistence Questionnaire, a sleep-adequacy composite of school-night sleep duration and perceived sleep quality, and a bedtime social media use timing-frequency item. Results Greater problematic use was associated with poorer sleep adequacy, which was linked to weaker engagement, lower persistence, and lower GPA. The full sequential indirect effect was significant. Bedtime social media use strengthened the negative association between problematic use and sleep adequacy and yielded significant moderated mediation. Findings were robust across alternative sleep indicators and GPA sources. Discussion Sleep, engagement, and persistence therefore represent statistically supported intermediate associations within the proposed model, although longitudinal research is needed to establish temporal ordering and reciprocal effects.