Associations between smoking status and social networks use disorder tendencies

Abstract

The present study investigated potential associations between tendencies towards social networks use disorder (SNUD) and smoking status/tobacco use disorder (TUD) tendencies. A final sample of n = 529 participants was recruited via an online survey, with the effective sample comprising n = 228 non-smokers, n = 54 ex-smokers, and n = 247 smokers. In this preregistered work, a significant association was observed between SNUD and smoking status. In detail, when running analysis without controlling for potential age and gender effects, smoking status was visibly linked to individual differences in SNUD scores: the smoking-group was associated with lowest SNUD scores. Further (and exclusive) analysis of the smoker-group revealed no significant associations between SNUD and TUD tendencies. Interestingly, exploratory analyses of the male and female smoker subsamples revealed a mild non-significant positive association between SNUD and TUD in males and a mild non-significant negative association between SNUD and TUD in females (the latter was a very small positive correlation after controlling for age though). In sum, the study revealed that associations between SNUD and TUD might exist, but the observed findings were not in line with the preregistration and need to be revisited by future studies in larger sample sizes.

Keywords

• Social networks use disorder
• Tobacco use disorder
• Problematic social media use
• Smoking status