YouTube is a popular video-sharing platform where viewers can watch videos made by media performers called YouTubers. YouTube is a social media site conducive to the development of parasocial relationships, which consists in asymmetrical relationships between media users and media performers. The aim of this study is to identify the determinants of YouTube addiction by examining the relationships between social anxiety, parasocial relationships with YouTubers and YouTube addiction based on a cognitive-behavioral theoretical framework. Data from 932 participants were collected through an online survey. Multiple regression analyses and structural equation modeling using a bootstrap procedure reveal that 1) social anxiety and 2) parasocial relationships with YouTubers are predictors of YouTube addiction, 3) social anxiety is a predictor of parasocial relationships, 4) social anxiety moderates the relation between parasocial relationships and YouTube addiction, 5) parasocial relationships mediate the relation between social anxiety and YouTube addiction and 6) social anxiety also moderates this mediated effect. The proposed moderated-mediation model of YouTube addiction fits well the data. The findings of this study contribute to the literature on the parasocial compensation hypothesis while providing useful information for prevention and intervention for YouTube addiction and social anxiety disorder.

Introduction

Launched in 2005, YouTube is a popular video-sharing platform with over one billion users and one billion hours of video viewed every day (YouTube, 2017). It is the second most visited website in the world after Google and ahead of Facebook (Alexa, 2019). YouTube is the most popular social media platform in the US with 73% of American adults using it (Pew Research Center, 2018). Social media sites can be characterized as internet applications that permit users to create and exchange content with others (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). They all have their unique architecture, norms and culture (Smith, Fischer, & Yongjian, 2012). Among them, social networking sites (SNS), and especially Facebook, are the most popular and the most studied (Kuss & Griffiths, 2017). SNS are characterized by the fact that users create personal profiles and use the platform to interact with real-life friends or to meet new people (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Kuss & Griffiths, 2017). YouTube does not possess all the social networking functionalities and is best categorized as a content community within the scope of social media sites (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Kuss & Griffiths, 2017). Whereas SNS are more focused on relationships between users, YouTube is focusing on content viewing (Khan, 2017). As in the case of SNS, the success of YouTube comes along with the development of addictive behaviors toward the website (Balakrishnan & Griffiths, 2017; Klobas, McGill, Moghavvemi, & Paramanathan, 2018; Masters, 2015). Regarding SNS, social networking functions seem to act as reinforcement of online addictive behaviors through the enjoyment they bring to the users (Turel & Serenko, 2012). However, as YouTube architecture differs from SNS architecture, determinants of YouTube addiction may also differ from the determinants of SNS addiction. Based on a cognitive-behavioral framework of online addiction (Davis, 2001), the aim of the present study is to identify the specific determinants of YouTube addiction.