Social networking time use scale (SONTUS): A new instrument for measuring the time spent on the social networking sites

• New scale has been developed to measure the time use on the SNSs.
• The scale has good psychometric properties.
• The scale is very simple to use and administer.

One of the key issues plaguing the existing studies on the use of the social networking sites (SNSs) is the lack of a uniform index for measuring the time spent on the sites. The present investigation tries to fill this gap by conceptualizing, developing, and validating a new construct, which we referred to as social networking time use scale (SONTUS). To achieve this, two separate studies were conducted. The data for the first study was collected from 2049 individuals through quota sampling approach. Meanwhile, in this first study, we used exploratory factor analysis to identify the dimension of the SONTUS construct. Findings from this study reveal that SONTUS has five factors with good measurement properties. The main aim of the second study (where we utilized data from 1808 people) is to carry out a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and tests three hypothesized models. In addition, it aims to investigate the construct validity of SONTUS; and to achieve this, we used 10 personality and well-being measures, and two theoretically related constructs to SONTUS. The CFA results showed that SONTUS has five factor solution consisting of 29 items and that the model with 5 first-order factors with 1 second-order factor is the most suitable model for the study population. Additionally, the second study provides preliminary evidence for the convergent, predictive, and incremental validity of SONTUS. Overall, the findings from our exploratory (study 1) and confirmatory (study 2) studies shows that SONTUS can be used as a standardized instrument for measuring time spent on sites.