Abstract:
This study explores the association between problematic internet use, celebrity worship, social comparison, and body dysmorphia. The objective is to investigate the potential relationships and their implications for individuals' psychological well-being. A sample of 179 participants consisting of 87 male and 92 females, aged 16-21 years, completed self-repon measures assessing problematic internet use, celebrity worship, social comparison tendencies. and body dysmorphia symptoms. The data were analysed using correlation. t-test analysis to examine the relationships between these variables. For assessing the Problematic internet use, problematic internet use questionnaire (Thatcher and Goolam. 2005) was used, for celebrity worship, celebrity attitude scale (McCutcheon et al.. 2002) was used, for social comparison, social comparison scale Allan and Gilben (1995) was used and for body dysmorphia, body dysmorphia disorder questionnaire Wilhelm (2006) was used. Hence, the ftndings of this study indicated a significant positive link between problematic internet use and celebrity worship. indicating that higher problematic internet use was associated with increased engagement in celebrity worship. Moreover, the mediation analysis demonstrated that celebrity worship partially mediated the relationship between problematic internet use and body dysmorphia, revealing its role in connecting excessive internet use to concerns related to body image. Furthermore, social companson tendencies were found to mediate the association between celebrity worship and body dysmorphia, implying that individuals with higher levels of celebrity worship might experience heightened body image issues due to social comparison processes.However, when considering the overall indirect effects of problematic internet use on body dysmorphia through both celebrity worship and social comparison, the impact was found to be negligible. This suggests that other factors may also play a role in shaping the relationship between problematic internet use and body dysmorphia. Additionally, gender differences emerged in the relationships among these variables, indicating that the influences of problematic internet use, celebrity worship, and social comparison on body dysmorphia might differ between males and females.
