CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION AND SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION: THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE

As an unavoidable part of the lives of people, social media has caused the consumption style, attracting attention with its changing consumption habits and transferring to digital platforms. When social media becomes an addiction, social media usage affects people in terms of hedonic consumption, their need for sharing, and social competence based on conspicuous consumption and socialization. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the hedonic consumption, need for sharing, and social competence of individuals based on conspicuous consumption. We used data on social media usage by students in higher education. An online Google Form survey was conducted on students from a state university in Turkey, and 637 participants joined this research. The results show that insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(a); hedonic consumption, insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(b); need for sharing, and insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(c); social competence affects social media addiction. This effect occurs from the mediation effect of social media usage. In this study, theoretical and practical implications and limitations and future areas of research are discussed.