Further evidence for the bidimensionality of the components model of addiction: a reply to Amendola (2023)

In our original research article entitled “Deconstructing the components model of addiction: an illustration through “addictive” use of social media” (Fournier et al., 2023), we showed that the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale, a six-item psychometric instrument derived from the components model of addiction to assess social media “addiction”, did not form a unitary, but a bidimensional construct in which some components (i.e., salience, tolerance) were not associated with psychopathological symptoms, thus conflating central and peripheral features of addiction. Subsequently, in a recent commentary, Amendola (2023) sought to determine whether our findings were driven by the use of data aggregated from multiple independent datasets, i.e., a decision we transparently acknowledged as a limitation in our original research article. Following their re-analysis, Amendola (2023) claimed to have demonstrated that a unidimensional model best fitted the data. However, they only reported results for a partial set of models relevant to this investigation. In the present reply, through a transparent assessment and reporting of all unidimensional and bidimensional models relevant to this investigation, we show that the bidimensionality of the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale is, in fact, tenable, robust, and consistent across multiple independent datasets. In line with the growing evidence demonstrating that many sets of criteria involved in operationalizing behavioral addictions pathologize involvement in appetitive behaviors, these results highlight the necessity to renew the conceptualization and assessment of behavioral addictions.