Psychiatry Research 284 (2020) 112673

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Psychiatry Research
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/psychres

Associations between emotion recognition and social networking site T

addiction
⁎
Pınar Ünal-Aydına, Kuzeymen Balıkçıb, İpek Sönmezb, Orkun Aydına,
a
Department of Psychology, International University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
b
Department of Psychiatry, Near East University Faculty of Medicine, Nicosia, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: With the widespread use of the internet today, many studies have been conducted regarding the use of social
Social networking site networking sites (SNS). Despite the growing literature on the effects of SNS on human life, there are limited
Addiction successful therapeutic interventions for SNS addiction. Our study aimed to elucidate the potential role of
Internet emotion recognition in the development of SNS addiction and to propose novel strategies for alleviating pro-
Emotion recognition
blems emerging from SNS addiction. A total of 337 individuals participated in the study. A sociodemographic
Facial expression
Social media
data form, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), and the Social Media Addiction Scale (SMAS) were
administered. The results revealed the presence of emotion recognition deficits among individuals with SNS
addiction, relative to non-addicts. RMET positive and negative scores were associated with SNS addiction in a
negative direction. Additionally, RMET negative scores predicted SNS addiction. Our findings indicate a possible
link between SNS addiction and emotion recognition, which might serve as a crucial target in novel treatment
strategies.

1. Introduction shown to be impaired in many psychiatric disorders such as anxiety

Social networking sites (SNS) are any web-based, computer-medi-
ated tools to share, create, or exchange ideas, information, videos, or
pictures in virtual networks and communities.(e.g. social. networks,
message boards, patient.forums, Twitter, Blogs, Instagram, and
Facebook) (Obar and Wildman, 2015). SNS addiction is a problem
among users of all kinds, including ordinary people, who experience
psychological, physical, and social impacts in their lives (Sevilla, 2012).
It has been reported that the symptoms of SNS addiction mimic the
symptoms related with other addictions, which include salience, con-
flict, tolerance, withdrawal, relapse, and mood modification
(Griffiths, 2005).
The excessive use of social media results in many negative situations
among SNS addicts. Poor quality of sleep, excessive mental occupation,
repetitive thoughts about control of use, failure to prevent access, and
spending increased time on the internet each time owing to social
media are reported in literature as undesirable states associated with
SNS addiction (Andreassen, 2015; Dewald et al., 2010).
The competency for recognizing the emotional states of other
people is important, particularly in everyday social functioning
(Kohler et al., 2004). Accordingly, emotion recognition ability has been
disorders (Aydın et al., 2019), schizophrenia (Balikci et al., 2018),
eating disorders (Harrison et al., 2009), personality disorders
(Fertuck et al., 2009) as well as alcohol (Bora and Zorlu, 2017) and
substance use disorders (Dolder et al., 2016). The development of SNS
addiction, just as in other types of addiction, might be explained by
neurobiological (Kuss and Griffiths, 2012), personality (Hong et al.,
2014), sociocultural (Ji et al., 2010), behavioural (Ryan et al., 2014),
and cognitive factors (Schou Andreassen and Pallesen, 2014). However,
emotion recognition patterns have not been assessed in previous studies
related to SNS addiction.
In the course of time, it is obvious that individuals with SNS ad-
diction encounter unfavourable consequences in relational, emotional,
performance, and health related aspects of their life
(Andreassen, 2015). Nevertheless, self-help methods, relaxation ex-
ercises, cognitive behavioural therapy techniques, and psychiatric
medications such as antidepressants can be utilized to alleviate the
problems emerging from SNS addiction (Andreassen, 2015). Although
such interventional methods are supposed to be effective, the ther-
apeutic outcomes in the prevention of SNS addiction are not promising
and the search for new treatment modalities continues
(Schou Andreassen and Pallesen, 2014). Therefore, the determination

⁎
Corresponding author at: International University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Hrasnička cesta 15, 71210 Ilidža, Sarajevo, Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
E-mail address: oaydin@ius.edu.ba (O. Aydın).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2019.112673
Received 20 June 2019; Received in revised form 31 October 2019; Accepted 31 October 2019
Available online 01 November 2019
0165-1781/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
P. Ünal-Aydın, et al.
of problems in emotion recognition might provide evidence for novel
treatments for individuals with SNS addiction, and acquisition of ef-
fective emotion recognition might enhance their mental well-being. In
this study we aimed to explore whether there were differences in
emotion recognition between individuals with SNS addiction when
compared with the non-addicts. Moreover, we investigated whether
disturbances in emotion recognition ability could predict SNS addic-
tion. We hypothesised that individuals with SNS addiction have poorer
performance in emotion recognition relative to non-addicts and lower
performance in emotion recognition could predict SNS addiction.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Participants
A total of 337 individuals participated in the present study. The
individuals were college students attending the Near East University
and the International University of Sarajevo. We placed an advertise-
ment on the internet and made an announcement through social media
platforms for participant recruitment. Those who volunteered to par-
ticipate in the study were exempted from one homework assignment
equalling 2.5% of the overall course grade. The students who did not
want to participate in the study could obtain this credit by submitting
the homework assignment. The homework assignment and participa-
tion in the study were comparable in terms of the time, effort, and
fulfilment of course requirements. All students were free to withdraw
from participation at any point without penalty. Students who with-
drew from the study also received full course credit for participation.
The inclusion criteria were as follows: being 18–65 years old, being able
to fill in the applied forms/tests and having at least one SNS account.
The presence of any psychiatric disorder, use of psychiatric medica-
tions, and having a neurocognitive disorder which affects cognitive
functioning were the exclusion criteria. Fourteen participants were
excluded due to the presence of mental disorders based on their self-
report (cannabis use disorder (3), attention deficit and hyperactivity
disorder (1), major depressive disorder (3), obsessive compulsive dis-
order (3), and bipolar disorder (4)). Two participants could not com-
plete the tests. All participants approved the informed consent in a
written format. The study was approved by the Institutional Review
Board of Near East University (Meeting no: 2019/65, Project no: 714).
2.2. Instruments
2.2.1. Sociodemographic form
The participants’ demographic characteristics (age, gender, educa-
tion, marital and economical status, current location, and tobacco and
alcohol use) and SNS/internet use patterns were evaluated with the
sociodemographic form prepared by the researchers.
2.2.2. Social media addiction scale
The Social Media Addiction Scale (SMAS; Tutgun-Ünal, 2015) has
been developed to measure the styles of SNS use for the Turkish po-
pulation and includes 41-items. It is a self-report instrument in which
the items are rated on a five-point Likert scale: 1 (never), 2 (rare), 3
(sometimes), 4 (often), and 5 (always). The scale consists of four sub-
dimensions: occupation (SMAS-O), mood modification (SMAS-MM),
relapse (SMAS-R), and conflict (SMAS-C). Higher scores in each subtest
indicate greater pathological SNS use and addiction, whereas an overall
test score under 74 refers to non-addiction. The test was found to be
valid and reliable in a Turkish sample, with good internal consistency
(Cronbach's alpha ranging from 0.89 to 0.96) and acceptable test–retest
reliability (ranging from 0.59 to 0.84; Tutgun-Ünal, 2015).
2.2.3. The reading the Mind in the Eyes Test
The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) was used for as-
sessing social cognitive ability. The RMET's revised version presents 36
2
Psychiatry Research 284 (2020) 112673
photographs depicting only the eye region of the face with four complex
mental state words (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001). Participants were asked
to find the word which best describes the thought or feeling expressed
in the photograph. The photographs included in the test involve com-
plex emotional and cognitive states. The test scores can be calculated
for positive, negative, and neutral emotions, separately (Harkness et al.,
2005). The test-retest reliability was measured using the Bland-Altman
method (r = 0,650; p < 0,01 (%95 CI: 0,490-0,768)). After grouping
the responses for each of the questions as correct or incorrect, the re-
sults of the reliability were examined by the Kuder–Richardson 20
method (KR20 = 0,72). It was found that the RMET, consisting of 32
items, is valid and reliable in the Turkish sample (Yildirim et al., 2011).
2.3. Statistical analyses
Statistical analyses were performed with data of 321 participants.
The test results of four participants were not included owing to extreme
values in the self-report tests. First, normality was checked with the
Shapiro-Wilk test and all scales fulfilled the assumptions of normality.
The participants were then distributed into two groups according to
their overall score on the SMAS: 120 individuals who scored less than
74 points in SMAS-total represented the non-addict participants, and
the remaining 197 individuals comprised the SNS addicts. The socio-
demographic variables were analysed by chi-square and t-tests. In order
to compare SMAS and RMET, we performed a MANCOVA (using the
Bonferroni method), controlling for the possible effects of socio-
demographic differences across groups. We utilised Pearson's correla-
tions for exploring the relationships between RMET and SMAS in the
SNS addicts. Following this, linear regression analysis (using the enter
method) was performed with the variables found to be significant
during the correlational analyses, to validate the association between
SMAS and RMET. Lastly, binary logistic regression analyses were con-
ducted to find potential predictors (RMET) in the discrimination of SNS
addicts and non-addicts. The statistical significance (p value) was ad-
justed as 0.05 and all analyses were carried out using statistical ana-
lyses software (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY. SPSS Statistics 22.0).
3. Results
3.1. Characteristics of the groups
A significant difference in age was found between the groups. There
were no differences in the gender, education, and marital and eco-
nomical status of the two groups. The groups had no differences in
residential area. Moreover, they showed similar patterns in tobacco and
alcohol use. The SNS addicts were using the internet and SNS more
frequently; moreover, they were checking their SNS accounts more
often when compared to the non-addict group. The characteristics of
the groups are reported in Table 1.
3.2. Comparison of SMAS and RMET scores of the groups
Descriptive statistics for the SMAS and RMET subtests for each
group are shown in Table 2. In order to control for its possible effects,
age was treated as a covariate. There was no significant effect of age
(Wilks Lambda; F(8307) = 0.95; p = 0.06; ηρ2 = 0.04) in the groups.
Multivariate testing found the effect for significant group difference
(Wilks Lambda; F(8307) = 0.41; p = 0.01; ηρ2 = 0.38). The SNS ad-
dicts obtained higher scores in all of the SMAS subtests and SMAS total
score relative to the non-addicts. Individuals with SNS addiction scored
lower points in RMET-negative subtest and RMET-total. However, the
RMET-positive and neutral subtest scores did not differ between groups.
3.3. Associations between SMAS and RMET among SNS addicts
Pearson's correlation coefficients are presented in Table 3. We found
P. Ünal-Aydın, et al. Psychiatry Research 284 (2020) 112673

Table 1
Sociodemographic features of the groups with and without SNS addiction.
Group
SNS Addicts (n = 197) Non-addicts (n = 120) Stats.
Mean S.D. Count (%) Mean S.D. Count (%)

Age 21.11 1.92 21.74 2.25 t(315) = 2.651, p < 0.01

Gender
Male 82(41%) 57(48%) χ2(1) = 1.04, p = 0.30
Female 115(59%) 63(52%)
Education(years) 14.27 1.80 15.38 10.64 t(315) = 1.430, p = 0.15
Marital status
Married 2(1%) 1(1%) χ2(2)=1.76, p = 0.62
Has relationship 62(31%) 45(38%)
No relationship 132(68%) 74(61%)
Economical status
Better 5(2%) 4 (3%) χ2(2) = 0.17, p = 0.91
Moderate 86(44%) 52(43%)
Worse 106 (54%) 64 (54%)
Current location
City center 153(77%) 95(79%) χ2(1) = 0.09, p = 0.75
Not city center 44(23%) 25(21%)
Present tobacco use 46 (23%) 28 (23%) χ2(1) = 0.69, p = 0.70
Present alcohol use 4 (2%) 1 (1%) χ2(1) = 0.75, p = 0.68
Internet usage (hour/day) 1.98 0.76 1.51 0.88 t(315) = −5.029, p < 0.01
Social media usage (hour/day) 1.60 0.74 0.83 0.71 t(315) = −9.066, p < 0.01
Social media usage (year) 1.85 0.85 1.65 0.99 t(315) = −1.835, p = 0.06
Social account check (times) 1.75 1.21 0.85 0.98 t(315) = −6.721, p < 0.01

Table 2 Table 3
Group comparison of SMAS and RMET subtests showing means and the results The correlations between SMAS and RMET in the SNS addicts.
from a MANCOVA analysis.
RMET-pos RMET-neg RMET-neutr RMET-total
Group
SNS Addicts Non-addicts Stats. SMAS-O 0.022 0.054 0.082 0.063
(n = 197) (n = 120) SMAS-MM −0.051 0.052 −0.030 −0.009
Mean S.D. Mean S.D. F Sig. ηp2 SMAS-R −0.129 −0.130 0.001 −0.088
SMAS-C −0.210⁎⁎ −0.149* −0.058 −0.202⁎⁎
SMAS-O 37.38 7.90 21.11 5.89 377.23 <0.001 0.54 SMAS-Total −0.150* −0.088 −0.010 −0.113
SMAS-MM 14.23 4.34 8.62 3.43 137.88 <0.001 0.30
SMAS-R 12.60 6.39 6.37 1.90 102.79 <0.001 0.24 Notes for Table 3: RMET-pos: The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test -positive
SMAS-C 40.39 13.07 22.77 3.69 206.55 <0.001 0.39 emotions, RMET-neg: The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test -negative emo-
SMAS-total 104.60 24.27 58.89 9.87 379.05 <0.001 0.55 tions, RMET-neutr: The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test -neutral emotions,
RMET-pos 5.48 1.22 5.65 1.02 1.62 0.20 0.01 SMAS-O: Social Media Addiction Scale-occupation subtest, SMAS-MM:Social
RMET-neg 7.72 1.77 8.18 1.63 5.31 0.02 0.17
Media Addiction Scale-mood modification subtest, SMAS-R: Social Media
RMET-neutr 10.04 2.19 10.28 1.97 1.69 0.19 0.02
Addiction Scale-relapse subtest, SMAS-C: Social Media Addiction Scale-conflict
RMET-total 22.57 3.60 23.25 3.27 3.74 0.05 0.02
subtest.
⁎

Notes for Table 2: RMET-pos: The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test -positive p < 0.05,.
⁎⁎

emotions, RMET-neg: The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test -negative emo- p < 0.01.
tions, RMET-neutr: The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test -neutral emotions,
SMAS-O: Social Media Addiction Scale-occupation subtest, SMAS-MM:Social Table 4
Media Addiction Scale-mood modification subtest, SMAS-R: Social Media The predictor variables of SNS addiction.
Addiction Scale-relapse subtest, SMAS-C: Social Media Addiction Scale-conflict
Dependent variable Predictors β r R2
subtest.
*Age variable was treated as covariate. SMAS-C RMET-pos −2.01 −2.66⁎⁎ 0.05
RMET-neg −0.08 −0.11*
negative correlations between SMAS-C subtest and RMET positive, ne- SMAS-total RMET-pos −2.95 −0.15* 0.02
gative, and total score across SNS addicts. In addition, SMAS-total was
Notes for Table 4: RMET-pos: The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test -positive
only associated with RMET positive score in a negative direction. Linear
emotions, RMET-neg: The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test -negative emo-
regressions were performed for validating the associations between tions, SMAS-C: Social Media Addiction Scale-conflict subtest.
SMAS-C subtest, SMAS total score, and RMET subtests. The RMET total ⁎
p < 0.05,.
⁎⁎
score was not entered into the analysis due to the presence of high p < 0.01.
collinearity with the other RMET subtests. According to the equation,
RMET-positive and negative subtest scores had a negative relationship different between the groups, the statistical value was close to sig-
with SMAS-C. Additionally, SMAS-total was negatively associated with nificance, and therefore, we included it in the equation. Hence, RMET
the RMET-positive subtest. These results are shown in Table 4. negative and total scores were entered into the binary logistic regres-
sion respectively, to predict group discrimination. The RMET negative
score was found to be significant (Wald‫׳‬s χ2(df=1) = 5.22; p = 0.02; Exp
3.4. Discrimination between the SNS addicts and non-addicts according to
(B) = 0.85, 95% C.I. = 0.74–0.97) in predicting group differences,
the RMET scores
accounting for 62.1% of the overall percentage. However, RMET-total
(Wald‫׳‬s χ2(df=1) = 2.73; p = 0.09; Exp(B) = 0.94, 95%
In group comparisons, only RMET-negative (p = 0.02) was found to
C.I. = 0.88–1.01) did not predict the discrimination across groups.
be different between groups. Although RMET-total (p = 0.05) was not

3
P. Ünal-Aydın, et al.
4. Discussion
4.1. Emotion recognition performance of the SNS addicts and non-addicts
The primary finding of our study indicated that SNS addicted in-
dividuals have poorer emotion recognition ability, particularly in
identifying negative emotions from facial expressions. However, the
competency in recognizing positive and neutral emotions was similar in
both groups.
In our knowledge, this is the first study which aimed to discover the
association between emotion recognition and SNS addiction. Owing to
the scarcity of similar studies in the literature, we cannot draw strong
conclusions regarding comparative results. Nonetheless, we attempt to
shed light on these findings by taking into account previous studies
conducted on other addictions such as alcohol use disorder (AUD),
substance use disorder (SUD), and internet addiction (IA). One study
reported that individuals with AUD misidentified emotions and were
biased toward negative emotions (Freeman et al., 2018). In another
study, risky alcohol use predicted poor performance in RMET
(Lyvers et al., 2018). In patients with cannabis use disorder, the iden-
tification of negative emotions was worse during the abstinence period
relative to healthy controls; however, they did not differ in the re-
cognition of positive emotions (Bayrakçı et al., 2015). Similarly, heroin
addicts had impaired emotion recognition when compared with healthy
individuals (Craparo et al., 2016). In another study, adolescents with IA
showed lower performance in identifying their own emotions and the
researchers recommended focussing on emotion regulation in the
treatment of IA (Karaer and Akdemir, 2019). In a recent study, in-
dividuals with IA were found to have deficits in recognizing negative
emotions, particularly for the facial expression of disgust; however,
there were no similar findings for other emotions (Chen et al., 2017). In
a similar vein, a study revealed that internet addicted participants
showed difficulties in identifying negative emotions due to in-
appropriate processing methods such as longer or inadequate fixations
on facial expressions, when compared with non-addict participants
(Ge et al., 2017). Therefore, our findings regarding poor emotion re-
cognition in SNS addiction are consistent with previous studies con-
ducted among various types of addiction. This result could be inter-
preted as disorders related with addiction possibly sharing a common
underlying pathology in emotion recognition.
4.2. Associations between SNS addiction and emotion recognition
In general, our findings confirmed that worse performance in
emotion recognition predicted SNS addiction. In particular, the conflict
subtest of SMAS was associated with both positive and negative emo-
tion recognition; additionally, the SMAS total score had a positive re-
lationship with emotion recognition. Conflict in SNS addiction refers to
the disruption in social relationships (e.g. disregard for their family
members and friends) and diminished daily functioning (e.g. lower
enthusiasm for leisure activities, hobbies, exercise, and job) because of
the SNS (Andreassen, 2015). The recognition of emotions is a crucial
social tool for establishing congruent communication between in-
dividuals. Misinterpretation or failure in identifying these social cues
might result in undesirable conflicts in social relationships
(Blair, 2003). We may infer that disabilities in the accurate recognition
of both positive and negative emotions are experienced by SNS addicts
who have difficulties in interpersonal relationships. Although SNS ad-
dicts spend a majority of their time on SNS seeking new connections,
they withdraw themselves from social communication in real life. In
addition, the inaccuracy in identifying others’ emotions might con-
tribute to the vulnerability to SNS addiction.
4
Psychiatry Research 284 (2020) 112673
4.3. Predictors for discriminating individuals with SNS addiction from the
non-addict group
The binary logistic regression analyses revealed that poorer per-
formance in recognizing negative emotions successfully predicted SNS
addiction. In other words, failure in the accurate identification of ne-
gative emotions might contribute to the susceptibility to SNS addiction.
However, our study was the first attempt to evaluate emotion re-
cognition in SNS addiction, and our finding relating to a particular
deficit for negative facial expressions was in line with studies of in-
dividuals with other addictions rather than SNS addiction (Bayrakçı
et al., 2015; Chen et al., 2017; Craparo et al., 2016; Frigerio et al., 2002;
Ge et al., 2017; Karaer and Akdemir, 2019). This association can be
explained by the developmental process. Emotions, whether positive,
negative, or neutral, play a central role in acquiring life-long, adaptive
strategies to cope with environment (Demos, 1986). Despite the ne-
cessity of all emotions, distress, which plays an inevitable role in the
developmental task of learning to tolerate, resist and modulate the
discomfort of negative affect, is much more related with negative
emotions. Thus, negative emotions act as a catalyst to develop im-
mature coping abilities and they become more salient in psychological
well-being relative to other emotion types (Kopp, 1989). The lack of
capability in accurately identifying negative emotions might cause
conflicts in interpersonal relationships due to insufficient coping me-
chanisms. Such individuals might avoid taking part in face-to-face re-
lationships and might also contribute to their reliance on the virtual
ambiance of SNS.
The present study has some limitations to be noted. First, the mental
status of the participants was not evaluated by a structured clinical
interview and the classification of individuals according to their SNS
addiction was done using a self-report SNS addiction questionnaire.
Despite our results being supported by previous views on the relation-
ship between poor emotion recognition and addiction, we cannot infer
a robust causality between SNS addiction and emotion recognition due
to the correlational nature of our study. There is a need for longitudinal
studies which can monitor an individual's status in assessed variables at
various time points in order to establish this potential link.
Our findings provide preliminary evidence for emotion recognition
deficits in SNS addiction. Despite great effort in understanding the ae-
tiology of SNS addiction, studies documenting therapeutic interventions
for it are sparse (Andreassen, 2015). Indeed, emotion recognition def-
icits are considered as therapeutic targets in cognitive behavioural
therapies for internet addiction (Du et al., 2010; Young, 2007).
Therefore, studies that provide evidence for the connection between
emotion recognition deficits and SNS addiction can contribute to the
development of novel intervention methods for these specific deficits in
order to diminish the disruptive effects of SNS addiction.
Funding source
There wasn't any funding source utilized for the current study.
Declaration of Competing interest
There are no conflicts of interest between authors.
Acknowledgments
All of the authors would like to thank Utkun Aydın and Fikret
Poyraz Çökmüş for their supports in data collection and proofreading.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2019.112673.
P. Ünal-Aydın, et al.
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