Problematic Social Media Engagement and Procrastination: A Dual-Domain Investigation of Sleep and Academic Outcomes

The widespread adoption of social media in everyday life has also raised concerns about its potential effects on university students' self-regulatory behaviors. The current investigation not only explored the relationship between social media addiction, bedtime procrastination, and academic procrastination, but also made comparisons on gender, university type, and residential background. A cross-sectional survey study was adopted using 300 university students. The young people were surveyed on Social Media Addiction Scale, Bedtime Procrastination Scale, and Academic Procrastination Scale. The statistical analyses to test the four hypotheses were Pearson correlation and independent samples t-tests. Findings have shown that social media addiction is significantly and positively correlated with bedtime procrastination (r =.57, p <.01), indicating that the higher the addictive social media activity, the more likely it is the delay in sleep behavior. Surprisingly enough, social media addiction was not positively correlated with academic procrastination (r = -.76, p <.01). The difference between genders appeared only when it came to academic procrastination, with the female population reporting more than the male population. The effects of institutional context were found to be strong: social media addiction and bedtime procrastination were weaker in the case of private university students; academic procrastination was significantly stronger in the case of public university students. Bedtime procrastination was found to be more common among urban students than it was among rural students. The results are explained in the framework of self-regulation and self-determination theories, where it is observed that the negative impact of digital overuse on biological processes, including sleep, is more immediate, and academic procrastination seems to be a more general motivational and situational phenomenon. Discussed are implications for digital hygiene interventions and policy within institutions.