In recent decades, technological developments have significantly elevated the role of the Internet in our lives (e.g., Elhami Athar and Azamian Jazi, 2022). The Internet and social network sites (SNS) have provided an online communication medium as a popular way of creating and maintaining relationships (Elphinston and Noller, 2011). Therefore, it is likely that individuals spend excessive amounts of time on social media and develop a strong attachment to it. Studies have shown that the excessive use of social media is associated with adverse outcomes such as poor academic performance (e.g., Al-Yafi et al., 2018), social anxiety (e.g., Atroszko et al., 2018), depression (e.g., Satici, 2019), low life satisfaction (e.g., Satici and Uysal, 2015), and poor work performance and insomnia (e.g., Brailovskaia et al., 2019, 2020). This widespread usage of the Internet and social media has raised notable concerns about problematic Internet behaviors and related conditions (Young, 2004), which has resulted in the inclusion of a novel diagnostic condition, namely the “Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD)” in the “as a condition for further study” section of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Technological addictions (e.g., the Internet, cell phones, and SNS) are generally viewed as a type of behavioral addiction characterized by core features of addictions, i.e., salience, withdrawal, and euphoria (e.g., Griffiths, 1996; Elphinston and Noller, 2011). Concerning SNS, high levels of SNS use are characterized by an excessive attachment to social media, which interferes with daily and relationship functioning. Pathological SNS use may also include withdrawal (distress related to an inability to access SNS), relapse and reinstatement (unyielding efforts to reduce SNS), and euphoria (feeling connected to others when using SNS; Elphinston and Noller, 2011). Therefore, the development of reliable measures to assess online social behavior, the nature of social media use, and its potential implications is of utmost importance (e.g., Elhami Athar and Azamian Jazi, 2022).

In this regard, Elphinston and Noller (2011) developed the Facebook Intrusion Questionnaire (FIQ) based on Brown’s (Brown, 1997) behavioral addiction components and the mobile phone involvement questionnaire by Walsh et al. (2010). FIQ includes eight item assessing behavioral addiction components among Facebook users. Items measure the link between the tendency toward Facebook involvement and eight aspects of behavioral addiction, including cognitive salience, behavioral salience, euphoria, interpersonal conflict, conflict with other activities, withdrawal, relapse/reinstatement, and loss of control. The original factor structure analysis yielded a one-factor model structure, which enjoyed adequate model fit indices and internal consistency (α = 0.85). This uni-factor model also demonstrated the expected association with relationship dissatisfaction. To our knowledge, only one study has examined the psychometrics of the FIQ, which was performed with 567 Spanish adults (Bendayan and Blanca Mena, 2019). In this sole study, the authors performed exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and provided support for the originally proposed one-factor model of the FIQ. In addition, the FIQ demonstrated good internal consistency and demonstrated the expected associations with self-control, time spent using social networking sites, problematic mobile phone use, internet addiction, phubbing, fear of missing out, and depression (Bendayan and Blanca Mena, 2019). Moreover, the study on the psychometric properties of the FIQ is in earlier steps and more studies are needed to examine the psychometrics of FIQ within different cultures (e.g., Eastern cultures). Additionally, it is yet to be studied if the proposed uni-factor model of the FIQ is invariant across gender groups.

As mentioned above, to our knowledge, only one study has examined the psychometrics of the FIQ, which was performed with a community sample from Spain (Bendayan and Blanca Mena, 2019). While the FIQ yielded adequate psychometric properties in this work, the study was performed in a Western country, making it uncertain to what extent findings can be generalized to Eastern societies and whether the measure holds the same factorial structure in various cultures. Also, no study has yet examined the measurement invariance (MI) of the FIQ score among gender groups. The establishment of MI provides evidence of a consistent underlying structure across groups, enabling group means to be compared (Han et al., 2019).

This study was conducted as an attempt to address the above-addressed limitations that hallmarked prior work on FIQ. We first conducted a CFA to examine the originally proposed uni-factor model of the FIQ. Given the cultural differences between Eastern and Western countries (For a review, see Ebrahimi et al., 2021,2022; Elhami Athar et al., 2022a,b), there might need for some modifications for this model to yield adequate fit (e.g., Elhami Athar and Azamian Jazi, 2022). Nonetheless, we expected the FIQ score to yield at least acceptable internal consistency scores based on Chronbach’s alpha coefficient. Finally, the associations between the FIQ and the theoretically related variables were examined to explore the validity of the FIQ scores. In this regard, we expected the FIQ yield significant positive associations with external correlates of interests, including time spent using social networking sites, problematic mobile phone use (i.e., addiction to social media based on the cell phone), and depression, and significant negative associations with self-esteem and self-control (e.g., Bendayan and Blanca Mena, 2019).

Of note, since Iranians use various SNS applications such as Instagram and Telegram more than Facebook, we modified the Facebook Intrusion Scale items to assess the intrusion of all SNS applications. To this end, we substituted the word “Facebook” with “social media” in all FIQ items. An example item is, “I often think about social media when I am not using it.” Thus, from hereon, we changed the label of the measure from “FIQ” to “Social Media Intrusion Questionnaire (SMIQ).”

This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the SMIQ (original FIQ) among an Iranian community sample. While FIQ was originally designed to assess addiction to Facebook, we modified the Facebook Intrusion Scale to cover all SNSs by substituting the word “Facebook” with “social media” in all eight items and labeled the measure as SMIQ. First, we conducted a CFA to examine the originally proposed one-factor model of the measure, and the results indicated that this model reached excellent model fit, which is in line with previous studies (Elphinston and Noller, 2011; Bendayan and Blanca Mena, 2019). Furthermore, this study was the first to examine the measurement invariance (MI) of the SMIQ score across gender groups, with the results indicating that the SMIQ is invariant across gender groups, making it possible to compare the scores across gender groups. However, no significant difference was found across males and females in the SMIQ score in this study. The results also indicated that when relying on Cronbach’s alpha (α), the internal consistency of the SMIQ score was in the good range consistent with prior research (Elphinston and Noller, 2011; Bendayan and Blanca Mena, 2019).

We also examined the correlations between SMIQ and external criterion measures to examine the convergent and discriminant validity of the Persian SMIQ score. In line with previous studies, it is expected that individuals with higher SMIQ scores have higher levels of addiction to social media and spend more time on SNS. In line with this hypothesis, the results showed that the SMIQ was significantly and positively associated with scores of cell phone based addiction to social media and time spent using social media (Elphinston and Noller, 2011; Bendayan and Blanca Mena, 2019; Elhami Athar and Azamian Jazi, 2022). Likewise, prior works suggested that increased SNS usage may lead to negative online experiences and fewer in-person interactions. It could also result in the development of attachment to social media, which could make individuals susceptible to negative social interactions and feedback, and, subsequently, higher risks for depression (e.g., Baek et al., 2013; Shensa et al., 2018). In this vein, our results indicated that the SMIQ had significant positive associations with depression scores. All these results support the convergent validity of the SMIQ score. In addition, it has been shown that more frequent SNS use is linked with lower self-esteem due to increased exposure to high-level social comparisons (e.g., Vogel et al., 2014). In line with this finding, our results showed that higher SMIQ scores were negatively and significantly associated with lower self-esteem scores. Finally, as SNS is constantly available and associated with rewards mechanisms, it may challenge individuals’ self-control abilities in terms of controlling the frequency and amount of SNS usage (Turel and Qahri-Saremi, 2016). Thus, as expected based on this finding, the SMIQ yielded a significant negative correlation with self-control abilities. Altogether, these results provided support for the convergent and divergent validity of the SMIQ scores.

Our results should be interpreted considering some limitations. First, we examined the convergent/discriminant validity of the SMIQ using the self-report measure, so it is possible that the correlations between the measures may partly be explained by shared method variance. Second, our study sample included participants from the community, so the results from this study should not be generalized to other samples.

Despite these limitations, our results indicated that the SMIQ is a valid and reliable measure of addiction to social media. Our study would encourage researchers to replicate our results in various cultures and countries to bolster the literature on the psychometrics of the SMIQ (original FIQ).

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Research Deputy of the Iran University of Medical Sciences. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

ZA gathered the data, performed data analyses, and prepared the manuscript. AA, ARF, and HF supervised the study and reviewed and revised the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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