Narcissism and Problematic Internet Use: Differential Links to Internet Versus Social Media Addiction—A Multidimensional Meta-Analysis.

Problematic Internet use (PIU) is prevalent and harmful, yet findings regarding narcissism remain inconsistent. We meta-analyzed 143 effects from 74 studies (N = 68,705) using random-effects models and relative weight analyses to examine global, dual-dimensional, and trifurcated narcissism across PI...

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Publicado en:CyberPsychology, Behavior & Social Networking Vol. 29; no. 6; pp. 357 - 372
Autores principales: Zhou, Lanqing, Wang, Junkai, Lou, Kexin, Zheng, XinLu, Li, Xinyi, Zeng, Xianglong
Formato: meta analysis research systematic review tables/charts Journal Article
Publicado: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Jun2026
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Jun2026
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      pub: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
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        atl: Narcissism and Problematic Internet Use: Differential Links to Internet Versus Social Media Addiction—A Multidimensional Meta-Analysis.
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        au:
          Zhou, Lanqing
          Wang, Junkai
          Lou, Kexin
          Zheng, XinLu
          Li, Xinyi
          Zeng, Xianglong
        affil: Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
      sug:
        subj:
          Narcissism
          Internet Addiction Psychosocial Factors
          Social Media
          Behavior, Addictive
          Digital Media
          Internet Addiction Etiology
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          Systematic Review
          Meta Analysis
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          Personality
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          Sensitivity and Specificity
          Descriptive Statistics
          Data Analysis Software
          Fisher's Exact Test
          Male
          Female
          Adult
          Correlational Studies
          Confidence Intervals
          Interpersonal Relations
          Adult: 19-44 years
          Male
          Female
      ab: Problematic Internet use (PIU) is prevalent and harmful, yet findings regarding narcissism remain inconsistent. We meta-analyzed 143 effects from 74 studies (N = 68,705) using random-effects models and relative weight analyses to examine global, dual-dimensional, and trifurcated narcissism across PIU domains. Global narcissism was positively associated with PIU (r = 0.26, 95 percent confidence interval (CI) [0.22, 0.30]) and remained significant after trim-and-fill, selection model, and outlier analyses. Subgroup analyses showed a positive association for social media addiction (r = 0.26, 95 percent CI [0.21, 0.30]), whereas the Internet addiction subgroup showed a smaller but still significant association (r = 0.16, 95 percent CI [0.07, 0.26]). Given the substantial heterogeneity across pooled outcomes, these findings should be interpreted as indicating an overall positive pattern rather than uniform consistency across studies. Dimensional analyses indicated that estimated associations varied according to the dimensional composition of narcissism measures. In dual-dimensional models, grandiose and vulnerable narcissism showed similar estimated associations with general PIU (r = 0.20–0.24) and problematic social media use (r = 0.21–0.22). For Internet addiction, however, the estimated association increased from r = 0.09–0.47 as vulnerable narcissism increased and decreased from r = 0.47–0.09 as grandiose narcissism increased, suggesting a stronger estimated role for vulnerability in this comparatively small subgroup. In trifurcated models, interpersonal antagonism showed the strongest positive estimated association across PIU domains, whereas narcissistic neuroticism showed inverse estimated associations in several analyses, and agentic extraversion showed minimal or nonsignificant effects. Conventional study-level moderators were not statistically significant, but relative-weight-based dimensional composition analyses suggested that estimated associations varied as a function of dimensional composition. Overall, these findings suggest that antagonistic and vulnerable aspects of narcissism may be especially relevant to PIU while also highlighting the importance of moving beyond global narcissism scores and interpreting dimensional estimates cautiously.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        meta analysis
        research
        systematic review
        tables/charts
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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