Instagram Use and College Students' Adjustment

Abstract

This study explored the relationship between Instagram use and college students' adjustment. Participants consisted of 177 students recruited from a psychology research pool. The participants completed measures of shyness (Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale), academic habits and achievement, college adjustment (College Adjustment Test), overall sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), personality (Big Five Inventory), and Instagram use (modified Social Media Disorder Scale). The linear combination of age, gender, and education level was not related to disordered Instagram use. When these factors were examined individually, however, women were found to score higher on disordered Instagram use as compared to men. The disordered use of Instagram also was positively related to shyness level, negative affect, overall poorer sleep quality, and neuroticism, as well as, negatively related to college GPA. Further, this study found that disordered use of Instagram was not related to positive affect, homesickness, academic habits, and other aspects of personality.