Social media addiction relationship with academic engagement in university students: The mediator role of self-esteem, depression, and anxiety Landa-Blanco, Miguel Reyes García, Yarell Landa-Blanco, Ana Lucía Cortés Ramos, Antonio Paz-Maldonado, Eddy Academic engagement Social Media Mental health This research analyzed how addiction to social media relates to academic engagement in university students, considering the mediating role of self-esteem, symptoms of depression, and anxiety. A quantitative methodology was used with a non-experimental-relational design. A set of questionnaires was applied to a non-probabilistic sample of 412 students enrolled at the National Autonomous University of Honduras. On average, participants use 4.83 different social media platforms at least once a week. Instagram and TikTok users report significantly higher levels of social media addiction, symptoms of depression, and anxiety compared to non-users. Directly, social media addiction does not significantly influence academic engagement scores. However, there are significant indirect inverse effects on academic engagement. Symptoms of depression and self-esteem mediate these effects. Social media addiction increases symptoms of depression, which in turn decreases academic engagement scores. Social media addiction decreases self-esteem, which serves as a variable that significantly increases academic engagement. Overall, findings suggest that social media addiction has a total inverse effect on academic engagement; symptoms of depression and self-esteem mediate this relationship. The implications of these findings are discussed. 2026-02-17T13:39:09Z 2026-02-17T13:39:09Z 2024-01-30 journal article Landa-Blanco, M.; Reyes García, Y.; Landa-Blanco, A. L. [et al]. (2024). Social media addiction relationship with academic engagement in university students: The mediator role of self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. Heliyon, Volume 10, Issue 2e24384. DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e24384 2405-8440 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/111124 10.1016/J.HELIYON.2024.E24384 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional CellPress