The darkside of the like
The effects of social media addiction on digital and in-person communication
Keywords:
Social media addiction, FOMO, Fear of Missing Out, Addictive Behaviors of Social Media, Social Media OutcomesAbstract
Social media are an important, widely used communication tool for individuals and businesses. However, there is the dark side of social media addiction and its impact to consider. Young adults were asked to identify the social media platforms they use and measure their use of those platforms. They were then asked to restrict their use of social media for 24-hours and record their emotions at the 1-hour, 4-hour, 8-hour, 12-hour, and 24-hour marks with both open-ended and quantitative indices. Social media is addicting in part because of a fear of missing out (FOMO) and platform features like notifications, limitations on time to view, streaks, and the desire to stay current on world news. Participants’ self-evaluation of their relationship with social media was compared to the symptoms and outcomes found in the social media addiction literature. Symptoms included time distortion and brain and behavior changes. Outcomes included depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, poor sleep, feelings of guilt, diminished performance, and decreased cognitive capacity. A positive result from the study was the awareness participants gained of their emotional attachment to social media. Awareness is the first step to addressing addiction.
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Baumeister, R. F. & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497-452.
Casale, S., Rugai, L., & Fioravanti, G. (2018). Exploring the role of positive metacognitions in explaining the association between the fear of missing out and social media addiction. Addictive Behaviors, 85, 83-87.
Chou, H. T. G., & Edge, N. (2012). “They are happier and having better lives than I am”: The impact of using Facebook on perceptions of others' lives. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15(2), 117-121.
Duke, K., Ward, A., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. (2018). Having your smartphone nearby takes a toll on your thinking. Harvard Business Review, March.
Elhai, J. D., Levine, J. C., Alghraibeh, A. M., Alafnan, A. A., Aldraiweesh, A. A., & Hall, B. J. (2018). Fear of missing out: Testing relationships with negative affectivity, online social engagement, and problematic smartphone use. Computers in Human Behavior, 89, 289-298.
Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-mediated Communication, 12(4), 1143-1168.
Greenberg, P. E., Fournier, A. A., Sisitsky, T., Pike, C. T., & Kessler, R. C. (2015). The economic burden of adults with major depressive disorder in the United States (2005 and 2010). The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.
Hancock, J. T., Beaver, D. I., Chung, C. K., Frazee, J., Pennebaker, J. W., Graesser, A., & Cai, Z. (2010). Social language processing: A framework for analyzing the communication of terrorists and authoritarian regimes. Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, 2(2), 108-132.
Liu, C., & Ma, J. (2018). Social media addiction and burnout: The mediating roles of envy and social media use anxiety. Current Psychology, 1-9.
Moreno, M. A., & Whitehill, J. M. (2014). Influence of social media on alcohol use in adolescents and young adults. Alcohol Research: Current Reviews, 36(1), 91.
Olufadi, Y. (2016). Social networking time use scale (SONTUS): A new instrument for measuring the time spent on the social networking sites. Telematics and Informatics, 33(2), 452-471.
Pennebaker, J. W., & Stone, L. D. (2003). Words of wisdom: Language use over the life span. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 291.
Perrin, A. (2015). Social media usage. Pew Research Center, 52-68.
Przybylski, A. K., Murayama, K., DeHaan, C. R., & Gladwell, V. (2013). Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(4), 1841–1848.
Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., Sidani, J. E., Bowman, N. D., Marshal, M. P., & Primack, B. A. (2017). Problematic social media use and depressive symptoms among U.S. young adults: A nationally-representative study. Social Science & Medicine, 182, 150-157.
Tandoc, J., Edson, C., Ferrucci, P., & Duffy, M. (2015). Facebook use, envy, and depression among college students: Is facebooking depressing? Computers in Human Behavior, 43(2), 139–146.
Turel, O., & Cavagnaro, D. R. (2019). Effect of abstinence from social media on time perception: Differences between low-and at-risk for social media “addiction” groups. Psychiatric Quarterly, 90(1), 217-227.
Turel, O., Poppa, N., & Gil-Or, O. (2018). Neuroticism magnifies the detrimental association between social media addiction symptoms and wellbeing in women, but not in men: a three-way moderation model. Psychiatric Quarterly, 89(3), 605-619.
Valkenburg, P. M., Peter, J., & Schouten, A. P. (2006). Friend networking sites and their relationship to adolescents' well-being and social self-esteem. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 9(5), 584-590.
Vannucci, A., Flannery, K. M., & Ohannessian, C. M. (2017). Social media use and anxiety in emerging adults. Journal of Affective Disorders, 207, 163-166.
Vogel,E.A.,Rose,J. P.,Roberts, L.R.,& Eckles,K. (2014). Social comparison,social media,and self-esteem. Psychologyof PopularMedia Culture,3(4), 206-222.
Whiteford, H. A., Degenhardt, L., Rehm, J., Baxter, A. J., Ferrari, A. J., Erskine, H. E., ... & Burstein, R. (2013). Global burden of disease attributable to mental and substance use disorders: findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. The Lancet, 382(9904), 1575-1586.
Woods, H. C., & Scott, H. (2016). #Sleepyteens: Social media use in adolescence is associated with poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Journal of Adolescence, 51, 41-49.
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2021-12-30
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