Group Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Reduce Psychological Distress Among College Students With Social Media Addiction

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.201125.011How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, College students, Psychological distress, Psychological flexibility, Social media addiction

Abstract

Social media use is growing rapidly in Indonesia, especially among college students. Excessive social media engagement is considered a form of internet addiction with unique adverse consequences. A common finding is that individuals use social media excessively to alleviate the negative emotions associated with difficult aspects of life, termed experiential avoidance behavior. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) aims to increase psychological flexibility and reduce experiential avoidance through mindfulness of the present, acceptance of difficulties, and behavioral changes according to personal values. The current study examined the efficacy of group ACT to reduce psychological distress among college students with social media addiction. Five female undergraduate students reporting 7–13 h on social media daily participated in four ACT sessions. Participants completed the Hoskins Symptom Checklist-25 (HSCL-25) for anxiety and depression (psychological distress), Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS), and the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II) before and after the intervention, and scores were compared by Wilcoxon sign rank test. All participants demonstrated significantly greater psychological flexibility after the ACT sessions as evidenced by lower AAQ-II scores (z = −2.032; p = 0.04 vs. pre-intervention) and four of five achieved lower HSCL-25 scores (group change: z = −1841; p = 0.06). While mean social media addiction score was not significantly reduced immediately post-program (z = −1.342, p = 0.1), 4 of 5 participants also showed substantial reductions. Further, most participants demonstrated continued reductions in HSDCL-25 and AAQ-II scores at follow-up. Post-intervention interviews revealed that all participants experienced reduced psychological distress and compulsion to use social media. Participants found ACT mindfulness and metaphor techniques particularly useful, while the group setting was considered advantageous as it allowed individuals to learn from other’s experiences.

Copyright

© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Lucky Windaningtyas Marmer
AU  - Fivi Nurwianti
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/11/27
TI  - Group Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Reduce Psychological Distress Among College Students With Social Media Addiction
BT  - Joint proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Intervention and Applied Psychology (ICIAP 2019) and the 4th Universitas Indonesia Psychology Symposium for Undergraduate Research (UIPSUR 2019)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 132
EP  - 143
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201125.011
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.201125.011
ID  - Marmer2020
ER  -