Daily internet use was the strongest predictor of sedentary behaviour in adults, while social media addiction had a small but significant effect, and physical activity was not a significant predictor.
Social media addiction was weakly positively correlated with sedentary behaviour in adults.
Social media addiction was negatively correlated with physical activity.
No significant correlation was found between sedentary behaviour and physical activity.
Daily internet use time was the strongest predictor of sedentary behaviour in hierarchical regression analysis.
Social media addiction made a small but statistically significant contribution to predicting sedentary behaviour beyond other factors.
Sociodemographic variables collectively explained 9.5% of the variance in sedentary behaviour.
The study was a cross-sectional online survey conducted in Turkey with 442 volunteer adult participants.
This research suggests that among Turkish adults, spending more time on the internet each day is the single strongest behavioural predictor of how sedentary a person is, meaning how much time they spend sitting or lying down during waking hours. Social media addiction also contributed to predicting sedentary behaviour, but its effect was small. Surprisingly, how much physical activity a person does was not a meaningful predictor of their sedentary behaviour, which supports the idea that being active and being sedentary are not simply opposites — a person can exercise regularly and still spend large amounts of time sitting. The study also found that social media addiction was associated with lower levels of physical activity, suggesting a possible indirect pathway where heavy social media use may both increase sitting time and reduce time spent being active. Demographic factors such as age, gender, education level, income, and employment status also played a role in predicting sedentary behaviour, accounting for about 9.5% of the variation seen across participants. This research matters because sedentary behaviour is linked to a wide range of health problems, and digital media use — particularly social media — is rising rapidly in countries like Turkey. The findings suggest that public health efforts to reduce harmful sitting time may need to focus not just on encouraging exercise, but also on addressing excessive internet and social media use as distinct behavioural risk factors. Because this was a cross-sectional study (a snapshot in time), it cannot prove that social media use or internet time directly causes sedentary behaviour, only that they are associated.
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Upload Your LabsBüğüşan Oruç S, Mirzaoğlu N, Yıldırım Z, Akkaya K, Elbasan B, Yakut Y. (2026). Predictors of sedentary behaviour in adults: the role of social media addiction and physical activity - a cross-sectional study from Turkey.. Journal of global health. https://doi.org/10.7189/jogh.16.04206