Relationship between Social Media Addiction and Attachment Style on Academic Performance
Some studies established linkages between aspects of social media usages and academic performance among school students (Jacinto, Molia, Junco, Cardano, Berboso, Vergas, Bautista, Espinosa, & Francisco, 2021; Jamil, Ain, Batool, Saadat, et al., 2021; Azizi, Sarough & Khatony, 2019), but no study have shown whether social media addiction has a relationship with academic performance among intermediate adolescents. Similarly, other studies have implicated attachment styles to academic achievement, college academic success, and school adjustment among students. No study has investigated the relationship between attachment styles and academic performance among intermediate adolescents (Ebimoboere & Udochi, 2021; Kurland & Siegel, 2020; Sayedi, Yazdanbakhsh & Karami, 2018). Furthermore, earlier studies examined relationships between perceived parental psychological control, parental attachment styles, emotional regulation, parental bonding, and attachment styles (Nweke, Dike, Dike, & Umeaku, 2021; Ebimoboere, 2021, Agbaria, Mohamid, & Veronesa, 2021). Similarly, studies examined the relationship between perceived parental psychological control and internet addiction, social media addiction among students (Yu & Luo, 2021; Hou, Xiong, Yiang, Song & Wang, 2019; Etinkaya, 2019). No study showed the moderating role of perceived parental control on the existing relationship between social media addiction on academic performance of intermediate adolescents in Nigeria. This study examined the relationship between social media addiction and attachment style on academic performance: the moderating role of perceived parental control among intermediate adolescents in Awka capital. Participants for the study were 99 adolescents who volunteered from three randomly selected secondary schools. The participants were made up of 99 (42, 42.42%) males and (57, 57.58%) females with an age range of 10 -16 years, mean age 14.30 years, and standard deviation of 1.65 years. Instruments used for data collection were grade point average (GPA), social media addiction scale developed by Sahin (2018), attachment styles questionnaire developed by Feeney & Noller (1994), and parental control scale developed by Baber (1996). The study adopted moderated predictive design. Statistics used were Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient and moderated multiple regression analysis enter method. Results revealed that all hypotheses were not confirmed. It was recommended that parents or caregivers should avoid making smartphones available to their children at a much earlier age to avoid addiction. Also, addicted adolescents should be taken for psychological interventions.