Empathy and social media addiction: the mediating role of emotional contagion among university students

Mohamed Ali Nemtallah (Al-Azhar University)
Reda Mahrous Ebrahim (Al-Azhar University)
Shimaa Abdelmoghny Elbeltagy (Al-Azhar University)
Sabry Mohamed Sharamant (Al-Azhar University)
Aya Fawzy Torky (Al-Azhar University)
Ashraf Ragab Ibrahim (Al-Azhar University)

International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE)
Vol 15, No 5: October 2026

Social media addiction (SMA) has emerged as a significant behavioral health concern among university students, yet the mechanisms linking empathic sensitivity to compulsive platform use remain unclear. This study examined whether emotional contagion mediates the relationship between empathy and SMA among 1,471 Egyptian university students. Participants completed the affective and cognitive measure of empathy (ACME), susceptibility to emotional contagion scale, and SMA scale. Structural equation modeling revealed that empathy negatively predicted SMA directly (β=-.527, p