The fast development in internet technology has enabled access to social media platforms from anywhere (Griffiths & Kuss, 2017; Vannucci et al., 2020). The number of social media users in the world has increased by >10% in the last year and reached 4.62 billion in 2022. This number is 58.4% of the world population (Kemp, 2022). Social media use is also very popular among adolescents (Banyai et al., 2017; Cheng et al., 2021). In the Pew Research Centre's report, it is stated that adolescents use social media platforms such as YouTube (95%), TikTok (67%), Instagram (62%), Snapchat (59%) and Facebook (32%) (Pew Research Centre, 2022). It was also reported that 35% of adolescents use at least one of these platforms “almost constantly” and only 8% spend very little time on these platforms (Pew Research Centre, 2022). Individuals use social media to create a private or general profile, meet and chat with constructs, share photos/videos and stories (Boursier et al., 2020; Toma et al., 2020). Uncontrolled use of social media can cause many negative situations (psychosocial problems, disturbed sleep (Garett et al., 2018), decreased subjective happiness (Uysal et al., 2013), and poor academic performance (Yue et al., 2023), in addition to anxiety and depression (Seabrook et al., 2016)), especially addiction (Alabi, 2013; Andreassen et al., 2016; Zubair et al., 2023).

Adolescence is a period in which the individual tries to adapt to spiritual, cognitive, social, and physical changes (Özkan & Kutun, 2021; Yıldırım Kurtuluş et al., 2022). In this period of developmental changes, a new identity is tried to be created. Adolescents' acceptance of their physical appearance is important for identity development (Çetinkaya et al., 2019). Yau and Reich (2019) stated that adolescents care about being liked while creating a social media profile. It was also stated that adolescents get help from their friends to look attractive (Yau & Reich, 2019). In another study, it was stated that as social media addiction increases in adolescents, appearance-related social media consciousness also increases (Çimke & Yıldırım Gürkan, 2023). In this study, it was aimed to determine the relationship between social media addiction and appearance-related social media consciousness in Turkish adolescents.

H1

There is a significant relationship between social media addiction and appearance-related social media consciousness.

H2

There is a significant relationship between time spent using social media and social media addiction.

H3

There is a significant relationship between time spent using social media and appearance-related social media consciousness.