Objective: This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of technostress in the relationship between Problematic Social Media Use (PSMU) and academic burnout among adolescents within the framework of the stress-strain-outcome (SSO) model.
Method: The participants were 379 Iranian high school students (195 girls and 184 boys), selected through a multi-stage cluster sampling method. To evaluate the key constructs of the study, data were gathered through three validated instruments: the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (Andreassen et al., 2017), the SNS-Stress Creators (Maier et al., 2015b), and the School Burnout Inventory (Salmela-Aro et al., 2009a).
Results: The results of the structural equation modeling indicated that PSMU has a positive and significant role in predicting students' academic burnout (β=0.61, p<.01). Additionally, PSMU was also found to be a positive and significant predictor of technostress (β=0.54, p<.001). Moreover, the findings indicated that technostress partially mediated the association between PSMU and academic burnout (β=0.12, p<.001).
Conclusions: The findings provide empirical support for the proposed SSO model, indicating that technostress statistically mediates the relationship between PSMU and academic burnout. Accordingly, technostress may represent an important pathway through which PSMU is associated with academic burnout, highlighting the need to consider technology-related strain when addressing the academic consequences of PSMU.