Students report spending more time on social media websites and apps than
they spend studying and that this negatively affects their grades (Li,
2010). What causes students to engage in social media usage at a sacrifice
to their academic pursuits? We posited that trait self-regulation would be
negatively correlated with time spent on social media. 86 students
completed the short form of the Trait Self-Control Scale (Tangney,
Baumeister,& Boone, 2004), which measured participants' trait
self-regulatory capacities. Participants also were asked how much time in
minutes they spent on several social media sites on a typical day. We also
asked students to estimate how much time in minutes they thought they used
social media during a typical day. Results indicated that trait
self-control was significantly negatively correlated with participants' own
estimates of their time on social media during a typical day (r= -.28, p=
.01). Trait self-control was correlated participants' estimates of their
total social media usage. We posit that people with low levels of
self-control lack the ability to disengage from social media.