EFFECT OF COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY ON SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION AMONG ACADEMICALLY GIFTED SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN IBADAN
Keywords:
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Academically gifted students, Secondary school students, Social media addiction, socioeconomic statusAbstract
This study examined the effect of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in reducing social media addiction among academically gifted secondary school students in Ibadan, Nigeria with socioeconomic status (SES) as the moderating variable. This study adopted quasi‑experimental pretest‑posttest control group research design. Participants were 40 academically gifted secondary school students in Ibadan, Nigeria. Participants were assigned to an 8‑week, 12‑session CBT intervention (experimental) or a no‑treatment control group. The Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS, α=.79) and a researcher‑designed Socioeconomic Status Questionnaire (SESQ, α=.75) were the instruments. Data were analysed using ANCOVA at α=0.05. Results showed a significant main effect of CBT, with the experimental group demonstrating greater reduction in addiction scores after controlling for pretest differences [F(1,37)=136.915, p<.001, partial η²=.787]. However, the main effect of SES was not significant [F(2,36)=0.438, p=.649], nor was the interaction effect of CBT and SES [F(2,33)=1.194, p=.316], indicating that treatment effectiveness did not vary by socioeconomic background. The findings confirm that CBT is a robust intervention for social media addiction among gifted students and works uniformly across high, moderate, and low SES strata. Schools in Ibadan can therefore implement a standardised CBT protocol without socioeconomic tailoring.
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