Relationship between Self-Esteem and Academic Stress: Mediating Role of Social Media Addiction

University students face major challenges from academic stress because their stress levels depend on their mental and physical health conditions. The present study examined the relationship between self-esteem and academic stress, with social media addiction serving as a mediating variable. The researchers used a quantitative cross-sectional design to gather data from university students who completed standardized self-report measures which assessed their self-esteem socially media addiction and academic stress. The findings revealed a significant negative association between self-esteem and academic stress which showed that students with higher self-esteem experienced lower levels of academic stress. Social media addiction showed a positive relationship with academic stress while self-esteem established a negative relationship with social media addiction. The mediation analysis established that social media addiction functioned as a partial mediator between self-esteem and academic stress. Students with lower self-esteem tend to use social media excessively which leads to increased academic stress according to the results. The study demonstrates how personal psychological resources interact with detrimental behavioral patterns to create academic stress. The findings demonstrate that self-esteem enhancement programs together with responsible social media usage programs help students achieve better mental health and experience less academic stress. The researchers recommend future research to use longitudinal and experimental designs for studying causal relationships and examining cultural and demographic effects.