• Mahima Pilwan
• K.M. Tripathi
• Mustafa Nadeem Kirmani

In the last few years, the use of social media has increased tremendously. Social media refers to online platforms and tools that allow people to create, share, and interact with content and each other. It’s where people connect, communicate, and express themselves digitally whether it’s through photos, videos, text, or live streams. Examples of social media platforms include facebook, Instagram, ,You Tube, X (Earlier known as twitter), LinkedIn, Snapchat etc. Excessive use of social media has often lead to mental health implications in the form social media addiction. Cognitive styles refer to the preferred ways individuals process information, think, perceive, and remember. It is an individual’s habitual and preferred way of thinking, perceiving, remembering and solving problems. Research has shown some association between social media use and cognitive styles. The aim of this research paper is to examine the relationship between social media addiction and cognitive styles among adults. The specific objective objectives of this paper were to (i) Examine social media addiction among adults (ii) Examine cognitive styles among adults (iii) Examine correlations between social media addiction and cognitive styles iv) Gender differences in social media addiction and v) Gender differences in cognitive styles. For the purpose of this research 120 adults were selected as per their age range i.e 18-40 years using convenience sampling. Twenty two item Social networking addiction scale by Shahnawaz and Rehman (2020) was used to assess social addiction while Cognitive styles were assessed by 40 item scale developed by Jha in 2001. Both the scales had sufficient psychometric properties. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Moderate social media addiction was found based on the obtained mean scores on the scale. Results showed that there is a positive significant relationship between social networking addiction scale and intuitive Cognitive style and no correlation between social networking addiction scale and systematic Cognitive style. No gender differences were found on the social media addiction and cognitive styles. The study highlights the significance of intuitive cognitive cognitive style as associated with social media addiction. Training these adults to work on their intuitive cognitive style as a possible intervention to counter social media addiction.

Social media addiction, cognitive styles, adults,

"Relationship between social media addiction and cognitive styles among Adults: An Empirical Investigation", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.12, Issue 5, page no.d936-d945, May-2025, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2505456.pdf

"Relationship between social media addiction and cognitive styles among Adults: An Empirical Investigation", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.12, Issue 5, page no. ppd936-d945, May-2025, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2505456.pdf