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Stanford University School of Medicine blog

cause and effect essay on social media addiction

Addictive potential of social media, explained

The curious title of Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke 's book, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence , pays tribute to the crucial and often destructive role that dopamine plays in modern society.

Dopamine , the main chemical involved in addiction, is secreted from certain nerve tracts in the brain when we engage in a rewarding experience such as finding food, clothing, shelter or a sexual mate. Nature designed our brains to feel pleasure when these experiences happen because they increase our odds of survival and of procreation.

But the days when our species dwelled in caves and struggled for survival are long gone. Dopamine Nation explains how living in a modern society, affluent beyond comparison by evolutionary standards, has rendered us all vulnerable to dopamine-mediated addiction . Today, the addictive substance of choice, whether we realize it or not, is often the internet and social media channels, according to Lembke, MD.

"If you're not addicted yet, it's coming soon to a website near you," Lembke joked when I talked to her about the message of Dopamine Nation , which was published in August. This Q&A is abridged from that exchange.

Why did you decide to write this book?

I wanted to tell readers what I'd learned from patients and from neuroscience about how to tackle compulsive overconsumption. Feel-good substances and behaviors increase dopamine release in the brain's reward pathways .

The brain responds to this increase by decreasing dopamine transmission -- not just back down to its natural baseline rate, but below that baseline. Repeated exposure to the same or similar stimuli ultimately creates a chronic dopamine-deficit state, wherein we're less able to experience pleasure.

What are the risk factors for addiction?

Easy access and speedy reward are two of them. Just as the hypodermic needle is the delivery mechanism for drugs like heroin, the smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine for a wired generation.

The hypodermic needle delivers a drug right into our vascular system, which in turn delivers it right to the brain, making the drug more potent. The same is true for the smartphone; with its bright colors, flashing lights and engaging alerts, it delivers images to our visual cortex that are tough to resist. And the quantity is endless. TikTok never runs out.

What makes social media particularly addictive?

We're wired to connect. It's kept us alive for millions of years in a world of scarcity and ever-present danger. Moving in tribes safeguards against predators, optimizes scarce resources and facilitates pair bonding. Our brains release dopamine when we make human connections, which incentivizes us to do it again.

But social connection has become druggified by social-media apps, making us vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption. These apps can cause the release of large amounts of dopamine into our brains' reward pathway all at once, just like heroin, or meth, or alcohol. They do that by amplifying the feel-good properties that attract humans to each other in the first place.

Then there's novelty. Dopamine is triggered by our brain's search-and-explore functions, telling us, "Hey, pay attention to this, something new has come along." Add to that the artificial intelligence algorithms that learn what we've liked before and suggest new things that are similar but not exactly the same, and we're off and running.

Further, our brains aren't equipped to process the millions of comparisons the virtual world demands. We can become overwhelmed by our inability to measure up to these "perfect" people who exist only in the Matrix . We give up trying and sink into depression, or what neuroscientists called "learned helplessness."

Upon signing off, the brain is plunged into a dopamine-deficit state as it attempts to adapt to the unnaturally high levels of dopamine social media just released. Which is why social media often feels good while we're doing it but horrible as soon as we stop.

Is there an antidote to our addiction to social media?

Yes, a timeout -- at least for a day. But a whole month is more typically the minimum amount of time we need away from our drug of choice, whether it's heroin or Instagram, to reset our dopamine reward pathways. A monthlong dopamine fast will decrease the anxiety and depression that social media can induce, and enhance our ability to enjoy other, more modest rewards again.

If and when we return to social media, we can consolidate our use to certain times of the day, avoid certain apps that suck us into the vortex and prioritize apps that connect us with real people in our real lives.

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Social Media as a Type of Addiction Words: 602
Social Media Addiction: Causes and Effects Words: 887
How Social Media Contribute to Mental Health Words: 1744
Social Media in Moderation Words: 1444
The Power of Social Media Words: 2322
The Influence of Social Media on Mental Health Words: 2391
Becoming Distant on Social Media Words: 572
Effects of Social Media and Internet Words: 601
Negative Effects of Social Media on Health Words: 1166
Social Media in Business Across the Globe Words: 1399
Social Media Nature and Influence Words: 638
The Causes and Effects of Social Media on Relationships and Communication Words: 1942
Effect of Social Media on Adolescent Mental Health Words: 3538
Are Social Media a Good Thing to Society? Words: 1392
Adverse Effects of Social Media on Mental Health Words: 2769
Social Media’s Multifaceted Impact on Mental Health Words: 1270
Life With or Without Social Media Words: 567
The Effects of Social Media on People Words: 869
Social Media and Mental Health Relationship Words: 1481
Social Media and Their Psychological Effects Words: 1924
Does Social Media Use Contribute to Depression? Words: 1372

Social Media Addiction Causes and Solutions

Introduction.

Among the rest, social media (SM) platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok have enjoyed rapid growth over the past few years, especially during and after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost three billion people use social media globally. The networks have become central to the lives of individuals because of the various benefits individuals get from using such platforms. However, even though it is beneficial, SM is a double-edged sword leading to behavioral addiction and severe effects on the users who do not moderate their use of the sites. The excessive SM use witnessed over the past few years has resulted in addiction, which has resulted in health-threatening behaviors. Some of the adverse effects of SM addiction include dysfunctions, mental disorders, negative emotions, loneliness, and decreased social connectedness. These impacts make the addicted users have low-quality lives and dysfunctional families.

Since social media addiction results in a significant and wide range of damages, it is crucial to understand its causes and how they can help prevent users from getting addicted to the sites. One of the most challenges to dealing with social media addiction is attempting to change an individual’s behavior without knowing what causes them to act as they do. Eventually, such approaches mostly fail because they do not address the root of the problem; instead, they regulate the results. The basis for understanding the psychological factors as the primary cause of SM addiction is crucial and is used in this article to explore possible methods to help curb the problem. Therefore, this article analyzes the causes of SM addiction and uses psychological methods to help address the issues among the affected users.

Causes of Social Media Addiction

Social media addiction has several causes, some of which result from underlying problems affecting individual users. The diversity in people shows that the range of the causes can be infinite as each depends entirely on the person. However, there are common roots attributed to behavior and change. Aksoy indicates that one of the major causes of social media addiction is weaknesses in life skills, which comprise issues associated with socializing, poor communication practices, and loneliness (Aksoy 862). Another cause is resiliency issues, which include the inability for one to recover from inner distress and devastations resulting from harsh conditions. The third primary cause of SM addiction is an individual’s poor problem-solving skills, comprising poor decision making, disorganization, and weak analytical skills. Each of these three primary causes is further explored in the sections below. The three triggers mentioned mainly sprout from various predisposing factors in one’s family, community, or society.

Socializing Problems

One’s inability to socialize with others is one of the critical factors causing individuals to be addicted to social media platforms. According to Chester, most people lack the skills to effectively interact with those they see daily (Chester, Richdale, and McGillivray 2234). This lack of social intelligence makes individuals feel isolated and unable to contribute significant thoughts when in the company of their fellow. They find their types and interact with them when they use social media. Moreover, social media also enables them to hide behind averters, thus speaking their minds without a feeling that anyone can judge them. The major areas associated with socialization problems comprise poor communication and the need to escape one’s loneliness.

Communication Problems

The inability to effectively communicate with other people makes social media users addicted to the sites where they find it easy to speak their minds through text, pictures, and videos. According to Trigueros, such people have difficulties creating and establishing relationships due to past experiences or failures and avoid face-to-face interactions, making them gain little social experience (Trigueros 4208). The void left by the lack of skills necessary for creating a suitable environment for healthy social relationships is filled with severe social behaviors and beliefs. Once developed, these users find a haven in SM sites, where they advance their unfulfilled real-world desires and relationships. They thus develop unreasonable tendencies, which become more adverse as they continue using the sites, thereby damaging their real-life healthy social relationships.

The Need to Escape Loneliness

Loneliness is one of the main drivers for people to seek a social relationship from external sources. During the pre-social media period, most people sought relationships from friends and peers to compensate for those they desired and lacked from family members. However, in present times and with the sprouting social media sites, SM users divert to these platforms to compensate for their lack of companions. O’Day et al. reveal that these users find a false comfort that they are not lonely when they speak with their fellows on the sites (O’Day et al. 100070). On the contrary, such feelings subside immediately after they are out of the sites. For this reason, most addicted users try to continue using these social media apps to escape feeling lonely. Some of the most addicted SM users are those newly divorced, immigrants, and lone children.

Resiliency Problems

Some users are addicted to social media because of their resiliency issues. Most people who lack support from their immediacy tend to SM to find activities that make them feel better. The ease of accessing social media sites also contributes immensely to resiliency problems, making the users addicted to the platforms. These factors give the users heaven of safety where they escape avoiding the crises affecting them. Resiliency problems mainly comprise individuals’ devastations experienced during harsh conditions and their inner distress.

Harsh Conditions

Harsh conditions often trigger the need for additional support, which, when available online, becomes the first place for people to find the psychological support they need at such times. However, most people also face problems with self-management skills when devastated. Various can make one vulnerable to social media manipulations when they face adverse conditions (Ghareb et al.). Moreover, harsh conditions also impair people’s judgment, making them seek peaceful social support solutions on the Internet. The psychological aspect of this problem is mainly rooted in an individual’s ability to maintain their bio-psychological balance. This lack of the power to know to check their mental state and behaviors makes it easy for them to escape their crises by getting deeply involved in the social media sites.

Inner Distress

Some people are addicted to social media because they cannot recover from a painful past or present situation. Most SM addicts have a history of failing to deal appropriately with their diverse problems in life (Wong et al. 1897). Such comprises individuals who find it difficult to recover from the difficulties they faced in the past and cannot heal themselves. Some who have failed in creating meaningful and healthy social relationships use SM to try to get the comfort they need, which prevents them from the memories of such events. Apart from railed social relationships in the past, other underlying issues could be a failure in academics, business, or sports, which make the individuals personally disturbed and lack a way to share their inner distress. The thoughts of the past make these individuals succumb to social media, which eventually harms their physical and psychological health.

Poor Problem-Solving Skills

As noted earlier, most people resort to social media and get hooked on them because of their various distresses. Thus, it is also crucial to note that those who get addicted to SM do so because they lack skills, they can use to solve issues affecting them at any time. Such individuals rush to social media to find sympathy from their followers and online friends. Such individuals failed to deal with their past problems and developed psychological disorders such as depression, anxiety, and attention deficits. These mental health issues further make individuals prone to social media addiction. Lack of problem-solving skills leading to people overusing SM includes weaknesses in analyzing situations and making informed decisions and disorganized plans.

Weak Analytical and Decision-Making Skills

Those addicted to social media users do not possess mature defense systems that they can employ in cases where they must defend themselves when faced with life’s crises. Primarily, such problems arise when individuals fail to analyze the issues and find logical solutions, thereby choosing more accessible options to navigate their situations or forget about them. Some users go to social media platforms as a defense or to find pity for what affects them (Ku et al. 100570). However, as they use the sites more, they are often taken deeper using the platforms’ algorithms. The users thus find related stories, which create comfortable heaven for them, making it difficult to face life’s realities. They thus find it challenging to reverse their behavior, fearing worse psychological outcomes. Their last situations become worse because they are unable to analyze the problems that caused them to be in their current circumstances and thus cannot be decisive about what they can do to become better.

Disorganized Plans

Most people addicted to social media are who they are because of their past disorganized plans. They continue using SM because they do not have many other options to plan their lives. They become purposeless and only momentarily use the sites to fulfill their psychological emptiness. They find comfort in following events on various social media platforms and get entertained. They feel comforted with the content they get and the people they meet on the sites. However, they remained miserable, hoping they could find assistance from those they followed on the platforms. Consequently, those addicted to social media experience more severe consequences, both in health and socio-economic aspects.

Solving Social Media Addiction

The analysis conducted on the causes of social media addiction has identified three main factors: weaknesses in life skills, resiliency issues, and poor problem-solving skills. The underlying issues and the root of all these factors are psychologically oriented, which reveals the need to use psychological interventions to help find the best ways to help those addicted or can be addicted to SM. SM use is mainly associated with depression, anxiety, and mental health problems. Major social media platforms have responded to concerns around the use of the sites and their effects on mental health. For instance, YouTube initially had likes and dislikes to measure the performance of videos, but it resorted to removing the dislikes counts to contribute to mental wellbeing. Instagram and Facebook have also taken the trend, and more SM companies are following suit. The idea behind such changes is to reduce psychological problems associated with the platforms’ use; the users already have an underlying emotional problem, and negative feedback can increase their psychological distress.

It was also noted earlier that trying to curb social behavior may be a poor approach to limiting social media addiction. Behavior is a psychological factor that requires a deeper understanding of the individual to help them deal with their problems and individually overcome them. Thus, it is crucial to help the affected person identify their drive to use social media excessively and thus create a map to overcome addiction. One should identify the main reason why they are on each social site in the first place. The drive to be part of the platforms forms the basis of understanding why someone would want to overstay at the same site for an extended period. However, this should be an individual question that may require an in-depth reflection and honest answer. A psychoanalyst can help identify the possible reasons the individual uses social media and thereby help them to seek personal answers for their use of the platforms.

This analysis identified that one of the factors making people addicted to social media is problems with socializing. Social health is a crucial element of humankind, and everyone should be able to form and maintain excellent and productive relationships with their peers, parents, and siblings. Those who lack care have ways of healing from the past and find more muscular attachments with those they meet. The analysis also identified problems in resiliency, such as harsh conditions and inner distress, as a cause of social media addiction. One should ask themselves if they can control their situations before seeking alternative and easier ways to navigate them. Individuals can also learn to understand that they can get help from people closer than those they meet online. Moreover, poor problem-solving skills were identified to cause SM addiction. Users addicted to SM can find alternative ways to solve their problems instead of hiding on social media. Understanding the SM does not help one find solutions is the basis for beginning the journey to one’s freedom.

The current study has revealed several causes of social media addiction, though the major ones are associated with severe underlying psychological problems. The study identified weaknesses in life skills, including individual factors such as poor communication practices and loneliness. It also revealed that resiliency problems such inability recover from one’s inner distress and devastation when they experience harsh conditions can make them use social media more to ease their mental stress. Poor problem-solving skills such as poor decision-making, disorganization, and weak analytical skills also make people addicted to social media. The study has also revealed that since the primary causes of social media addiction are psychologically motivated, individuals must understand why they are using particular problems and also get psychoanalytic treatments that can help with their adverse life experiences.

Works Cited

Aksoy, Mehmet Emin. “A qualitative study on the reasons for social media addiction.” European Journal of Educational Research 7.4 (2018): 861-865.

Chester, M., Richdale, A. L., & McGillivray, J. (2019). Group-based social skills training with play for children on the autism spectrum. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders , 49 (6), 2231-2242.

Ghareb, Mazen, et al. “Social media and social relationships: A case study in Kurdistan society.” Applied Computer Science 14.3 (2018).

Ku, Kelly YL, et al. “What predicts adolescents’ critical thinking about real-life news? The roles of social media news consumption and news media literacy.” Thinking Skills and Creativity 33 (2019): 100570.

O’Day, Emily B., and Richard G. Heimberg. “Social media use, social anxiety, and loneliness: A systematic review.” Computers in Human Behavior Reports 3 (2021): 100070.

Trigueros, Rubén, et al. “Relationship between emotional intelligence, social skills and peer harassment. A study with high school students.” International journal of environmental research and public health 17.12 (2020): 4208.

Wong, Hiu Yan, et al. “Relationships between severity of internet gaming disorder, severity of problematic social media use, sleep quality and psychological distress.” International journal of environmental research and public health 17.6 (2020): 1879.

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A hand holding a phone with social media icons coming out of it.

Too much social media can be harmful, but it’s not addictive like drugs

Professor of Addictions and Health Psychology, University of South Wales

Senior Lecturer in Psychology of Relationships, University of South Wales

Disclosure statement

Bev John has received funding from European Social Funds/Welsh Government, Alcohol Concern (now Alcohol Change), Research Councils and the personal research budgets of a number of Welsh Senedd members. She is an invited observer of the Cross-Party Group on Problem Gambling at the Welsh Parliament and sits on the “Beat the Odds” steering group that is run by Cais Ltd.

Martin Graff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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If you spend hours of the day on your phone checking social media, you’re not unusual. The average internet user spends two hours a day on various social media sites. But does your habit of checking Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok every few hours make you a social media “addict”?

The term “social media addiction” is being increasingly used to describe people who spend a lot of time on these websites and apps. Doing so can be harmful to people in a variety of ways – causing low self esteem, bad sleep and increasing stress .

The main focus when considering addiction to substances tends to be on three key elements: compulsion (or loss of control), tolerance (needing to increase amount to achieve the same effect) and withdrawal (unpleasant side effects when use stops). Other factors to consider relate to craving, preoccupation and continuing use despite it causing obvious problems. It’s easy to see how these factors apply to drugs, but what about shopping, gambling or, indeed, social media use?

Increasing interest in these and other behavioural “addictions” – like gaming, sex or the internet – has resulted in broadening definitions of what addiction is. Psychologists talk of excessive appetites and powerful motivational drives to engage in particular behaviours that have the power to do considerable unintended harm .

As researchers in social media and addiction, we have spent the last 25 years understanding different kinds of addiction. Our research tells us that social media addiction is not the same as an addiction to substances, like alcohol and other drugs.

Social media use

Too much social media can certainly be damaging. One major feature of social media is it allows users some control over how they present themselves to others. People can edit their online appearance and sometimes present themselves inaccurately while seeking validation from others.

This can cause all kinds of harm. In a study in 2019, we found when female users looked at the platforms for around one and a half hours per day, this was related to an increased desire to be thin , a heightened awareness of how they think other people judge them and motivation to exercise for the purposes of losing weight.

Read more: Why is celebrity abuse on Twitter so bad? It might be a problem with our empathy

And in 2016, we investigated the ways people seek validation on social media. We looked at how often people manipulate posts to increase the number of likes received, use social media to boost spirits or blindly post about issues with which they did not necessarily agree.

We found when this kind of online behaviour increased, self-esteem decreased. But our findings didn’t necessarily show a compulsion to use social media – something key in making it an addiction. Other social factors, such as fear of missing out and narcissistic personality traits, may drive the need to use social media to an unhealthy degree.

Social media addiction

In 2020, we undertook a study into harmful gambling that might help answer the question of whether social media addiction is real.

We found that rapid technological developments in the ease and speed of access of phone and tablet apps are leading to increased levels of gambling harm. Similar psychological processes may be at work on social media platforms, where need for validation, craving and checking likes is amplified.

Behavioural explanations for how addictions develop emphasise the power of reinforcement. Gambling products often use the most powerful form of reinforcement: random pay outs . This, again, is potentially similar to the way users receive validation in the form of “likes” on social media.

There are some who might argue that chronic overuse of social media can be seen as an addiction, but it not is currently recognised as such by the American Psychiatric Association .

There are important differences between excessive social media use and substances in terms of addiction. For example, withdrawal from the latter is often physically unpleasant and sometimes dangerous without medical supervision. Users often suffer stigma, which can be a barrier to seeking help. In comparison, it hasn’t yet been established that there are physical withdrawal effects when people stop using social media.

Considering social media use more as a continuum of possible harm might allow more scope for appropriately targeted messages that could prevent problems developing in the first place.

There are clearly elements of social media use that resonate with certain characterisations of addiction, such as psychological notions of excessive appetites or powerful motivations, and the built-in platform mechanisms of reinforcement through random affirmations or “likes”. It’s also clear that this can be harmful in terms of negative impact on some users’ self-esteem and body image.

But despite these factors, the most useful question might be how to create a healthy balance of interaction in our virtual and real worlds.

It’s worth remembering that behavioural addictions, like those to substances, often occur alongside other mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, suggesting that vulnerability may be multifaceted. This may also be true of excessive social media use.

Social media
Digital addiction

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Social Media Addiction

The Cause and Result of Growing Social Problems

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First Online: 21 June 2023
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Accompanying the growth and increase in popularity of social media have been negative psychosocial and psychological effects associated with its excessive use. Research has shown a positive relationship between addiction-like behaviors associated with social media addiction (SMA) and psychological factors such as loneliness and low self-esteem, which demonstrate a congruency with recognized behavioral addictions. Adding to this congruency are the identified negative outcomes associated with SMA, which include difficulties in time perception, time management, maintaining interpersonal relationships, academic performance and increased prevalence of depression. According to the components model of addiction, the maladaptive behaviors/symptoms associated with problematic social media use (addiction) can be grouped into six dimensions, salience, tolerance, withdrawal, mood modification, conflict, and relapse. Studies have also identified several antecedents related to individual personality traits, fulfillment of psychological needs (relatedness, self-presentation, and social interaction), and perceived discrepancies between current and desired (or expected) interpersonal relationships (e.g., loneliness and low self-esteem). This chapter discusses the current understanding of SMA including its definition, measurement tools, and consequences. Further, it examines the underlying psychological and physiological explanations for addictive behaviors arising from social media use. The examination is based on a review of current theoretical understanding and the range of empirical studies, which examines the phenomena. Lastly, it highlights proposed social and policy approaches to alleviate the problem.

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Smith, T. (2023). Social Media Addiction. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Problems. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68127-2_365-1

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Effects of Social Media — Social Media Addiction: Consequences and Strategies for Recovery

Social Media Addiction: Consequences and Strategies for Recovery

Categories: Effects of Social Media Media Influence Social Media

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Published: Jul 15, 2020

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Introduction, suggested solution, social media anxiety disorder.

David Blackwell, 21 April 2017 Extraversion, neuroticism, attachment style and fear of missing out as predictors of social media use and addiction. From https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.04.039 .
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Parade, S.H., Leerkes, E.M., & Blankson, A.N. (2010). Attachment to parents, social anxiety, and close relationships of female students over the transition to college. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39(2), 127-137. doi: 10.1007/s10964-009-9396-x.
Cludius, B., Stevens, S., Bantin, T., Gerlach, A., & Hermann, C. (2013). The motive to drink due to social anxiety and its relation to hazardous alcohol use. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 27(3), 806-813. doi: 10.1037/a0032295.

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The first negative impact of social media is that it leads to brain crashes. Which can lead to mental illness. Spending more time with using social media reduce the amount of using the brain in a good way. For example, using it became addiction some times. Several people are addictive social media, such as Facebook and Instagram.

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The internet has changed the way businesses and people interact with each other. Consumers can purchase items online using the internet instead of going to an actual store. Social media is used to get word out about an issue that anyone with the internet can view. Information is exchanged faster than ever before which allows different countries to communicate quickly. People are more informed on what is happening in foreign countries because they can see and read thousands of articles online of what is happening around the world.

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It affects the way of thinking especially when it comes to children. They will not be able to discern what they see which are absurd from reality. It results to weird actions and complicated interaction outside Social Media. Some become depressed which may lead to bipolar and worst, suicide. The minds of the users will be oriented to the internet shortcut words which may affect the skills of each individual in constructing words and sentences.

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Social Media – A Modern Addiction Social media are now popularized all around the world. With the development of technology, social media and social networking is gradually affecting our life styles and interpersonal relationships in many aspects, consciously or unconsciously. However, besides consuming so much time on the social networks, something else important is being taken away. As is noticed, an increasing number of people is somehow addicted to the social networking, spending hours in front of screens without doing anything meaningful to the daily life. Thus a serious issue occurred— Is social networking really significant or is it gradually becoming a modern addiction?

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Say Cheese! While everyone is taking the occasional selfie on their cell phones, they might also want to be looking into the effects it has on our minds. In recent years, technology has gone from a basic tool to a necessity. From adults to children, we are all using these high tech devices to help us save time and keep us out of any little trouble’s we might run into without them.

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Causes And Effects Of Social Media Essay | Good And Bad Effects, Bad Influence

October 19, 2021 by Prasanna

Causes and Effects of Social Media Essay: Today we will learn about the cause and effect of social media on youth, teenagers and adults. How this term social media is affecting today’s world with good or bad learnings.

In earlier days the mode of communication was sending letters to communicate with someone. But with the change in technologies we came up with an idea of sending the same letter via emails. As soon as days passed technology became so advanced that people started communicating live via facebook, instagram or whatsapp and many more applications that exist in the world.

With the change in time social media is growing rapidly. We have many applications growing every day with some good knowledge and some bad influences. Main social media applications are facebook, twitter and instagram. Social media is affecting the world in many different ways. Earlier social media was formed with an idea to find and communicate with new people or old friends. But with change in technologies social media was used by different people for different ways to spread news or rumours, to promote brands, to earn money online, to create content or to make videos etc.

This term Social media mostly got famous in teenagers. Age between 17 to 22 are the main users of social media these days. This is the age group of teens who got more affected and got addicted to social media.

You can also find more Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Long Essay on Causes and Effects of Social Media

So let’s talk about the topics one by one if this social media is doing good to people or destroying the image or disturbing the mental peace. So let’s talk about the causes and effects of social media these days.

Social media has made communication so much easier. Earlier we used to waste so much time communicating with people by sending letters or emails and waiting for them to revert or reply to the same. But now with the help of social media everything got so much easier. We can talk or communicate LIVE just by using chatting options on every social media platform. Main social media applications are facebook and instagram and these both are highly used applications these days.

People not only started to use this for communicating but also these apps give them access to the outer world, and so social media is used for many different ways now. We will discuss the examples of how social media is useful for people these days and has become an important part of their lives.

Social media is now also used mainly to promote brands, earn money and showcase their products to the world. Also to show their talent like dancing, acting and to entertain people. Many companies try their hands in social media to promote their brands to the world where they can’t reach. All they have to do is make facebook and instagram pages for their brands and start sharing new images and videos of products they want to sell, and as soon as people startwatching that product and if they like it they can buy online with the help of social media.

Many people who like to dance, play music, sing, or show some other art, they get into social media too. With the time they keep on uploading their art on social media and once they grow their followers or subscribers, they can monetize their page or channel and start earning out of it. Many brands approach good influencers online. They pay them good money to talk about their products. Once they become a good influencer on social media they get good sponsorships and money to promote any brand online.

As we discussed, mostly the main users of social media are teenagers and these teens are the ones who got affected and got addicted to social media. Social media, on the one hand shows a good world to people but on the other hand it destroys the mental peace of mind. More and more people every day are trying their hands on social media and getting lost in it. Sometimes social media influences people in such a way that they become a different personality in real life.

People are getting so addicted to social media that they only connect with people online but it’s a fact that they have lost the ability to connect with people in real lives. They have lost confidence in themselves. 75% of the population using social media are teenagers. Out of them many of them are getting themselves in stress, depression, and anxiety. Social media shows a good part of life but never shows the bad part of life. Many teenagers think that why cant they be a good model with a good body or good face? Why can’t they have a talent for dancing or singing? If they can’t find the answers to this question they feel so bad, get themselves into depression and stress and destroy their lives.

So everything in the world comes with good and bad. So social media also has a good and bad influence on people. Many just use them for some good deed and many use them for bad deeds. Always try to use social media minimally. My suggestion will be to always try to influence more and more people with your talent and always try to get influenced by good influencers. Every individual is different. So are you.

Causes And Effects Of Social Media Essay

Short Essay on Causes and Effects of Social Media

Social media provides a platform to share content, information, videos, news, ideas etc at a quicker speed and so it has advantages as well as disadvantages too.

Advantages of Social Media

You get to learn from it.
It provides awareness on various topics like fashion, politics etc.
You get to know the news faster.
Many news channels have started using it more.
You can be in touch with your old buddies.
It has also generated employment such as content writing, social media managers etc.

As we know that every coin has two sides, social media too has some disadvantages.

It creates privacy issues.
It enables cyber crime too like identity hacks, phishing etc
Spending more time on social media can hamper a student’s study hours.
Setting unrealistic expectations.

FAQ’s on Causes and Effects of Social Media Essay

Question 1. What is social media?

Answer: Social media is an online platform for communication. Facebook, instagram, whatsapp, tweeter are the major applications used as social media in the world. These social media applications are used to showcase your talent, share photographs, share your personal information to the world, share your dance moves, and share your art to the world.

Question 2. What are social media examples?

Answer: Facebook, youtube, instagram, tiktok, whatsapp, qq, facebook messenger are the biggest examples and play a major role in the social media world.

Question 3. What are the benefits of social media?

Answer: Increasing your visibility and showcasing your talent with the help of social media is the biggest benefit. Brand engagement with their customers and building relationships is one of the benefits of social media.

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Essay on Impact of Social Media on Teenager

Students are often asked to write an essay on Impact of Social Media on Teenager in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Impact of Social Media on Teenager

Introduction.

Social media has become an integral part of our lives, especially for teenagers. It provides a platform to connect, share, and learn.

Positive Impact

Social media can be beneficial. It helps teenagers to express themselves and connect with friends. It’s also a source of information.

Negative Impact

However, excessive use can lead to issues like cyberbullying, anxiety, and depression. It can also impact their physical health and academic performance.

In conclusion, while social media has its advantages, it’s essential for teenagers to use it responsibly.

250 Words Essay on Impact of Social Media on Teenager

Firstly, social media offers a platform for self-expression and identity formation, critical aspects of adolescent development. Teenagers can explore various facets of their personalities, interests, and values. Moreover, it provides an avenue for social interaction and friendship formation, connecting teenagers globally.

On the flip side, the pervasive nature of social media can lead to addictive behaviors, impacting teenagers’ mental health. The constant need for validation through likes and comments can lead to anxiety and low self-esteem. Furthermore, cyberbullying is a significant concern, with its effects often devastating, leading to depression or even suicidal thoughts.

Role of Digital Literacy

To mitigate the negative impacts, it’s crucial to foster digital literacy among teenagers. They need to be educated about responsible social media use, privacy settings, and how to handle cyberbullying.

In conclusion, while social media offers significant benefits to teenagers, it also poses considerable risks. It’s a double-edged sword that can either enhance or hinder adolescent development. Therefore, it’s crucial to provide teenagers with the necessary tools and education to navigate this digital landscape safely and responsibly.

500 Words Essay on Impact of Social Media on Teenager

Social media has become an integral part of our lives, shaping our interactions, relationships, and the way we perceive the world. However, its impact on teenagers, who are at a critical stage of their development, is a topic of intense debate and concern.

The Positive Impact

Moreover, social media helps teenagers build connections and socialize, especially those who may be introverted or socially anxious. It offers a space where they can engage in discussions, participate in online communities, and build friendships beyond geographical boundaries.

The Negative Impact

Conversely, the pervasive use of social media also has potential downsides. Cyberbullying is a significant issue, with teenagers being particularly vulnerable to online harassment and abuse. This can lead to serious emotional and psychological consequences, including depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem.

Furthermore, excessive use of social media can negatively affect teenagers’ physical health. It can lead to sedentary behaviors, sleep disturbances, and even addictive tendencies, disrupting their overall wellbeing and development.

Given these impacts, it is crucial to promote digital literacy among teenagers. They need to be educated about the potential risks and benefits of social media, and how to use it responsibly. This includes understanding privacy settings, recognizing and reporting inappropriate content or behavior, and being mindful of the amount of time spent online.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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Risk Factors Associated With Social Media Addiction: An Exploratory Study

1 School of Education, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China

2 Department of Psychiatry, 987th Hospital of PLA, Baoji, China

Xiuming Wang

Yiming xiao.

3 School of Economics and Statistics, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China

Associated Data

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

The use of social media is becoming a necessary daily activity in today’s society. Excessive and compulsive use of social media may lead to social media addiction (SMA). The main aim of this study was to investigate whether demographic factors (including age and gender), impulsivity, self-esteem, emotions, and attentional bias were risk factors associated with SMA. The study was conducted in a non-clinical sample of college students ( N = 520), ranging in age from 16 to 23 years, including 277 females (53%) and 243 males (47%). All participants completed a survey measuring impulsivity, self-esteem, anxiety, depression, social anxiety, loneliness, and attentional bias. The final hierarchical regression model indicated significant risk factors for SMA with an accuracy of 38%. The identified set of associated risk factors included female gender (β = −0.21, t = −4.88, p < 0.001), impulsivity (β = 0.34, t = 8.50, p < 0.001), self-esteem (β = −0.20, t = −4.38, p < 0.001), anxiety (β = 0.24, t = 4.43, p < 0.001), social anxiety (β = 0.25, t = 5.79, p < 0.001), and negative attentional biases (β = 0.31, t = 8.01, p < 0.001). Finally, a discussion of the results is presented, followed by corresponding recommendations for future studies.

Introduction

Social media (e.g., Facebook, WeChat, Tik Tok) have attracted substantial public interest to the point that they are becoming a cornerstone of modern communication. It has been argued that social media promote social interaction, help in maintaining relationships, and allow for self-expression ( Baccarella et al., 2018 ). According to a survey by the China Internet Network Information Center, there are 900 million users of social media in China. College students are freer than others to control the use of their time and the use of social media is thus becoming an integral part of their lives. However, social media, if used immoderately, may lead to social media addiction (SMA), which refers to the excessive and compulsive use of social media platforms, resulting in severe impairment in all aspects of life ( Kuss and Griffiths, 2017 ). Addicted users of social media tend to spend too much time on social media, to be overly concerned about social media and to be driven by uncontrollable urges to use social media ( Andreassen and Pallesen, 2014 ). SMA can be viewed as a specific form of digital technology addiction, in which the conceptualizations all center on these addictive behaviors as pathological forms of necessary and normal behaviors ( Moreno et al., 2021 ). SMA may affect users’ mental health, leading to anxiety, depression, lower subjective wellbeing, and poor academic performance ( Lin et al., 2016 ). The present study will examine potential risk factors associated with SMA focusing on demographic factors, impulsivity, self-esteem, emotions, and attentional bias.

In general, the impact of demographic factors such as age and gender has been considered in previous studies. Young individuals maintain an online presence and develop addictive behaviors more often than older individuals ( Abbasi, 2019 ). Furthermore, women are more likely to indulge in social media more than men in order to enhance their social connections ( Andreassen et al., 2017 ).

Impulsivity is an important personality trait that plays a major part in the occurrence, development, and maintenance of addiction ( Cerniglia et al., 2019 ). However, the link between impulsivity and SMA is controversial. It has been found that trait impulsivity is a marker for vulnerability to SMA ( Sindermann et al., 2020 ). The most influential theoretical explanation for this is Dual System Theory, which is also known as reflective–impulsive theory. The reflective system includes the prefrontal cortex, which plays a key role in a wide range of executive and inhibitory behaviors, such as short-term memory, planning, attention, and resistance to immediate rewards for the sake of long-term rewards. By contrast, the impulsive system includes the subcortical brain areas, accounts for pleasure and addictive behaviors, and responds to quickly acquired cues regardless of long-term negative results. Imbalance between the reflective and impulsive systems leads to addictive behaviors ( Droutman et al., 2019 ). However, another empirical study based on a Go/Stop Impulsivity task found impulsivity was not significantly associated with SMA ( Chung et al., 2019 ). This inconsistency of results may be caused by the use of different measurement approaches. Therefore, the association between impulsivity and SMA needs further exploration.

Self-esteem impacts the predisposition to SMA and there is a negative association between the frequency of Facebook use, the meaning attributed to Facebook use, and users’ levels of self-esteem ( Błachnio et al., 2016 ). People with low levels of self-esteem prefer to avoid face-to-face communication and escape into the virtual world where they can behave anonymously and do what they want. Also, negative feedback from social media will reduce users’ levels of self-esteem ( Andreassen et al., 2017 ).

Concerns over the negative emotions of social media addicts have not abated. Prior studies have mainly considered the influence of anxiety, depression, social anxiety, and loneliness on SMA. Atroszko et al. (2018) reported that SMA is positively associated with anxiety and depression. Additionally, social anxiety and loneliness are the emotions generated in the process of interpersonal communication ( O’Day et al., 2019 ). People with social anxiety prefer online communication as a way to avoid uncomfortable real interactions and social tensions. Caplan (2007) used privacy to explain this phenomenon: privacy can be better protected through online communication. However, the relationship between SMA and loneliness is controversial. Primack et al. (2017) regarded loneliness as a risk factor associated with SMA, indicating that high levels of loneliness may lead to addiction. Another study by Baltacı (2019) suggested that loneliness was not significantly associated with SMA. Thus, more studies examining the links between loneliness and SMA are needed.

In terms of cognitive factors, attentional bias has been considered as a potential causative factor of SMA. Attentional bias refers to a situation in which individuals are highly sensitive and allocate attentional resources to specific stimuli ( Gao et al., 2011 ). Generally, substance and behavioral addicts display an attentional bias mainly toward negative information ( Hu et al., 2020 ). Furthermore, attention to negative information (ANI) may further aggravate addictive behaviors ( Cheetham et al., 2010 ). An important theoretical explanation for addicts’ ANI is the self-schema theory ( Becker and Leinenger, 2011 ). Schemas are relatively stable and lasting cognitive templates for individual storage, organization, integration and information processing. A negative schema will make individuals pay attention to information consistent with the schema, resulting in a processing bias. It is not yet clear whether the attentional bias effect generalizes to SMA as a specific form of digital technology addiction. To our knowledge, no studies have specifically revealed a relationship between ANI and SMA.

Prior studies have focused on only one or two independent factors without considering the hierarchical importance of risk variables. Undoubtedly, identifying the hierarchical importance of risks has implications for the treatment and intervention of SMA. In the present study, an attempt was made to explore the risk factors for SMA considering their hierarchical importance. Also, this is the first report to specifically look at ANI and SMA with self-reported questionnaires, which provide the advantages of saving time and the capability to conduct large-scale investigations. It was hypothesized that each variable would be a significant predictor for SMA at each step.

Materials and Methods

Participants.

A total of 532 college students attending a state university in China participated in the present study. 12 participants did not meet the inclusion criteria and were excluded. The final study sample consisted of 520 participants including 277 females (53%) and 243 males (47%). The ages of all participants ranged from 16 to 23 years ( M = 19.68, SD = 1.07). Inclusion criteria for participants included fluency in Chinese and having at least one social media application account. Exclusion criteria included current psychiatric conditions and a history of mental illness (e.g., anxiety, depression, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder), as well as other addictive behaviors or a family history of addictions (e.g., alcohol use disorder, nicotine abuse, illegal drug dependence, etc.).

All participants completed paper-and-pencil surveys in class. Written consent was obtained from the participants before the survey. The survey took approximately 20 min. Data collection took place from April to June 2021.

Ethics Statement

Approval for the research was granted by the ethics committee of Guangzhou University. All participants were informed of the purpose and procedures of the study, and that participation was anonymous and voluntary.

Socio-demographics information: The survey recorded questions concerning age, gender, presence of social media accounts, current and prior of mental illness, as well as the presence of other addictive behaviors and a family history of addiction.

Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale

The Chinese version ( Leung et al., 2020 ), adapted from Andreassen et al. (2017) , was used to evaluate levels of SMA with higher scores indicating greater SMA. It consists of six items (e.g., “How often have you felt an urge to use social media more and more during the last year?”) measured on a 5-point scale (1 = very rarely , 5 = very often ). According to the gold standard of clinical diagnosis, a BSMAS score of 24 was taken to be the optimal cut-off point ( Luo et al., 2021 ). If the BSMAS score was 24 or above, the participant was considered to be addicted. Otherwise, the participant was considered to be non-addicted. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.78 in the current study.

Brief Barratt Impulsivity Scale

The Chinese version ( Luo et al., 2020 ), adapted from Morean et al. (2014) , was used to measure trait impulsivity. It consists of eight items (e.g., “I do things without consideration”) rated on a 4-point scale (1 = very inconsistent , 4 = very consistent ). Higher scores indicate poor self-regulation and impulsive behaviors. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.81 in the current study.

Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale

The Chinese version ( Wang et al., 2010 ), adapted from Rosenberg (1965) , was used to evaluate levels of self-esteem. It is rated on a 4-point scale (1 = strongly disagree , 4 = strongly agree ) with 10 items (e.g., “I feel that I have a number of good qualities”). Higher scores indicate higher levels of self-esteem. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.91 in the current study.

Self-Rating Anxiety Scale

The Chinese version ( Liu et al., 1995 ), adapted from Zung (1971) , was used to measure anxiety. It is rated on a 4-point scale (1 = never or very rarely , 4 = most or all of the time ) with 20 items (e.g., “I feel more nervous and anxious than usual”). Higher scores indicate more severe anxiety symptoms. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.84 in the current study.

Self-Rating Depression Scale

The Chinese version ( Liu et al., 1994 ), adapted from Zung (1965) , was used to assess depression. It consists of 20 items (e.g., “I feel gloomy and depressed”) rated on a 4-point scale (1 = never or rarely , 4 = most or all of the time ). Higher scores indicate more severe depressive symptoms. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.85 in the current study.

Interaction Anxiety Scale

The Chinese version ( Peng et al., 2004 ), adapted from Leary (1983) , was used to assess social anxiety. It consists of 15 items (e.g., “I will be nervous during an interview”) rated on a 5-point scale (1 = not at all consistent , 5 = extremely consistent ) where higher scores represent greater social anxiety. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.88 in the current study.

UCLA Loneliness Scale

The Chinese version ( Liu, 1999 ), adapted from Russell (1996) , was used to assess loneliness. It is composed of 20 items (e.g., “Do you often feel that no one can be trusted?”) rated on a 4-point scale (1 = never , 4 = always ). Higher scores indicate higher levels of loneliness. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.91 in the current study.

Attention to Positive and Negative Inventory

The Chinese version ( Dai et al., 2015 ), adapted from Noguchi et al. (2006) , was used to assess attentional bias. The inventory is composed of 22 items rated on a 5-point scale (1 = totally inconsistent , 5 = totally consistent ) and includes two dimensions: attention to positive information with 12 items and ANI with 10 items (e.g., “I can’t forget the harm that others have done to me”). This study focused on the impact of ANI on SMA, thus only the ANI subscale was used. Higher scores on the ANI subscale indicate greater ANI. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.73 in the current study.

Data Analysis

Data were analyzed using the SPSS 24.0 software package program. Initially, the effects of demographic information (age and gender) on SMA in the total sample were checked with one-way ANOVAs. The Pearson correlation coefficient was conducted to reveal the links between gender, impulsivity, self-esteem, emotions, attentional biases and SMA. Finally, a hierarchical regression analysis was used to explore whether independent variables (i.e., gender, impulsivity, self-esteem, emotions, and attentional biases) could predict the dependent variable (SMA).

Descriptive Data and Inter-Correlations Between Variables

First, one-way ANOVAs were used to investigate effects of age and gender on SMA in the total sample. Univariate analyses indicated that there is no significant difference by age [ F (7, 512) = 1.74, p = 0.09] but that the samples differed by gender [ F (1, 518) = 23.79, p < 0.001]. Females are more likely than males to be addicted to social media. Thus, the first step was to control for the effects of gender in the regression analyses. Next, a correlation analysis was performed on the influencing factors of SMA in the total sample. Bivariate correlations between variables are presented in Table 1 .

Descriptive data and inter-correlations between variables.

Variables	M (SD)	1	2	3	4	6	5	7	8	9	10
1. Age	19.68 (1.07)	1	0.04	–0.05	0.02	–0.07	–0.01	0.02	–0.07	0.02	0.06
2. Gender	0.47 (0.53)		1	0.01	0.05	–0.08	–0.05	−0.22	–0.02	–0.04	−0.21
3. Impulsivity	17.31 (4.03)		1	−0.48	0.45	0.31	0.30	0.46	0.15	0.34
4. Self-esteem	29.27 (4.73)			1	−0.61	−0.43	−0.41	−0.58	−0.29	−0.33
5. Anxiety	42.24 (8.60)				0.74	1	0.29	0.51	0.27	0.41
6. Depression	46.44 (9.37)				1		0.38	0.64	0.30	0.41
7. Social Anxiety	46.91 (9.96)						1	0.42	0.38	0.42
8. Loneliness	41.88 (9.33)							1	0.33	0.33
9. ANI	34.54 (5.13)								1	0.45
10. SMA	16.03 (4.12)									1

N = 520. **p < 0.01 and ***p < 0.001.

a Dummy variable is coded as male = 1, female = 0. The proportion of females in the sample is 53%.

ANI, attention to negative information; SMA, social media addiction.

Hierarchical Regressions

Hierarchical regressions are presented in Table 2 . Gender was included in Step 1 ( R 2 = 0.04). It was found that gender was significantly related to SMA (β = −0.21, t = −4.88, p < 0.001) and that females are more prone to addictive use of social media. In Step 2, gender and impulsivity remained risk factors ( R 2 = 0.16). Impulsivity was positively associated with SMA (β = 0.34, t = 8.50, p < 0.001). In Step 3, gender, impulsivity and self-esteem were included ( R 2 = 0.19). A higher level of self-esteem proved to be a protective factor associated with SMA (β = −0.20, t = −4.38, p < 0.001). Gender and impulsivity were still risk factors. In Step 4, negative emotions were added to the model ( R 2 = 0.30) and risk factors associated with SMA were found to include gender (β = −0.14, t = −3.79, p < 0.001), impulsivity (β = 0.18, t = 4.01, p < 0.001), anxiety (β = 0.24, t = 4.43, p < 0.001), and social anxiety (β = 0.25, t = 5.79, p < 0.001). Depression, loneliness and self-esteem were not risk factors. In Step 5, ANI was shown to be positively correlated with SMA (β = 0.31, t = 8.01, p < 0.001). The final model accounted for 38% of the variance [ F (9, 510) = 36.61, p < 0.001]. In the final model, gender, impulsivity, anxiety, social anxiety, and ANI were all found to be risk factors associated with SMA.

Regression analyses.

Steps	Variables	β
Step 1	Gender	−0.21	−4.88	<0.001
	= 0.04, = 23.79
Step 2	Gender	−0.21	−5.27	<0.001
	Impulsivity	0.34	8.50	<0.001
	= 0.16, Δ = 0.12, = 34.66
Step 3	Gender	−0.20	−5.09	<0.001
	Impulsivity	0.25	5.50	<0.001
	Self-esteem	−0.20	−4.38	<0.001
	= 0.19, Δ = 0.03, = 40.64
Step 4	Gender	−0.14	−3.79	<0.001
	Impulsivity	0.18	4.01	<0.001
	Self-esteem	−0.01	−0.10	0.92
	Anxiety	0.24	4.43	<0.001
	Depression	0.07	0.98	0.33
	Social anxiety	0.25	5.79	<0.001
	Loneliness	−0.03	−0.54	0.59
	= 0.30, Δ = 0.11, = 33.07
Step 5	Gender	−0.15	−4.25	<0.001
	Impulsivity	0.20	4.78	<0.001
	Self-esteem	0.02	0.31	0.76
	Anxiety	0.21	4.13	<0.001
	Depression	0.05	0.87	0.39
	Social anxiety	0.16	3.83	<0.001
	Loneliness	−0.07	−1.41	0.16
	ANI	0.31	8.01	<0.001
	= 0.38, Δ = 0.08, = 40.54

N = 520. ***p < 0.001.

a Dummy variable is coded as male = 1, female = 0.

ANI, attention to negative information.

The main objective of this study was to examine whether demographic factors, impulsivity, self-esteem, emotions, and attentional biases were potential risk factors associated with SMA. It was found that females were more susceptible to SMA than males. Additionally, impulsivity, low levels of self-esteem, anxiety, social anxiety, and ANI were found to be risk factors for SMA.

Demographic Factors

Gender was found to be associated with SMA. In the present sample, 2.9% of the participants scored 24 or above in BSMAS and thus met the criteria for SMA. The proportion was similar to the previous report (3.5%) in a Chinese sample ( Luo et al., 2021 ). The prevalence of SMA in males and females in the current study was 1.2 and 4.3%, respectively. Females showed higher addiction rate and greater levels of SMA than males. This result is in agreement with prior research ( Monacis et al., 2020 ). Females focus more attention on social activities for enhancing communication and prefer to share more selfies on social applications and social networking sites ( Dhir et al., 2016 ). Interestingly, it was found that age had no significant effect on SMA. This finding is inconsistent with the prior study that young people are more likely to develop SMA ( Abbasi, 2019 ). The lack of association between age and SMA can possibly be attributed to the selected sample in which participants were relatively young and the age span was small, resulting in no age effect.

Impulsivity

Although, the association between impulsivity and SMA is still controversial, this study supports the hypothesis that impulsivity is positively associated with SMA. This finding is in agreement with the study by Sindermann et al. (2020) , which indicated that trait impulsivity was positively associated with the severity of SMA. It contradicts the study by Chung et al. (2019) , which indicated that impulsivity was not associated with SMA. Our finding underlines the importance of impulsivity as a risk factor related with SMA. This result may be supported by Dual System Theory ( Droutman et al., 2019 ). Higher levels of impulsivity in social media addicts are rooted in an imbalance between the reflective and impulsive systems. Higher levels of impulsivity might be associated with SMA due to attentional fluctuation, i.e., individuals engage in social media when they lose attention to another task. Addictive uses of social media can thus be regarded as a form of urgency relevant behaviors displayed to regulate (suppress and/or exacerbate) emotional states in the short term despite the delayed negative consequences ( Rothen et al., 2018 ). Similarly, a study by Minhas et al. (2021) explored the links between alcohol abuse and food addiction in relation to impulsive personality traits, impulsive choices and impulsive action. It was found that alcohol problems and food addiction showed parallel associations, indicating common underlying impulsivity mechanisms. Likewise, the present study also found that a higher level of impulsivity is a risk factor for SMA. Collectively, the multiple lines of evidence suggest that SMA, food addiction, and alcohol abuse may have similar underlying impulsivity mechanisms.

Self-Esteem

Levels of self-esteem were found to be negatively correlated with SMA in the current study. This is consistent with a prior study that found higher levels of self-esteem are a protective factor against addictive behaviors ( Andreassen et al., 2017 ). In the research on Internet addiction, people with low levels of self-esteem tend to use the Internet for social support, and the social support gained from the Internet could compensate for the lack of social support offline. Also, SMA showed a negative correlation with levels of self-esteem. Individuals use more social media to obtain higher levels of self-esteem (e.g., harvesting “likes”), and/or to get rid of feelings of low self-esteem ( Błachnio et al., 2016 ). Notably, after emotions were incorporated into the model, self-esteem was no longer a risk factor for SMA in hierarchical regressions. Consistent with prior research, this suggests that the influence of self-esteem on SMA is regulated by emotions ( Andreassen et al., 2017 ).

The results of this study show that emotions, particularly, anxiety and social anxiety, are the strongest risk factors associated with SMA. This is consistent with prior research showing that anxiety is a risk factor for SMA ( Keles et al., 2019 ). Anxious individuals prefer to use social media platforms to alleviate unfavorable emotions, for example, by seeking attention, support, or a sense of belonging on social media ( Vannucci et al., 2017 ). Additionally, in line with the study by Baltacı (2019) , this study found that social anxiety is positively associated with SMA. Individuals who experience difficulty communicating with others in social environments prefer social media for interaction. Privacy is an important feature of the Internet ( Caplan, 2007 ). Compared to face-to-face communication, interaction through a virtual environment is perceived to be less risky.

The relationships between depression, loneliness, and SMA were found to be relatively low. Neither loneliness nor depression was significantly associated with SMA in this study. This is consistent with prior research that has shown that depression and loneliness were not predictors of SMA ( Baltacı, 2019 ; Marttila et al., 2021 ). The reason for the lack of a link may be the marginal effect caused by these moderate relationships. When depression and loneliness were analyzed as psychosocial variables in terms of SMA, it was found that depression and loneliness are both the reasons for Primack et al. (2017) and the consequences of SMA ( Dossey, 2014 ).

Attention to Negative Information

This was the first study to look at the association between ANI and SMA. This study used hierarchical regressions to find that ANI is one of the risk factors associated with SMA. Previously, a study by Aguilar de Arcos et al. (2008) reported that opioid users have higher arousal responses to negative and unpleasant emotional images compared with healthy individuals. Similarly, another study by Hu et al. (2020) used eye tracking technology to find that mobile phone addicts show a processing bias toward negative emotional clues. Although, unlike substance and behavioral addiction, the availability of social media is so high. Social media addicts also displayed negative attentional bias effect. This indicates that a processing bias toward negative information may be the common underlying mechanism that incurs and maintains addictive behavior. The abovementioned phenomenon can be explained by self-schema theory ( Becker and Leinenger, 2011 ). Addicts mainly demonstrate attentional biases toward negative emotions because they often experience negative emotions such as anxiety and depression. Information consistent with the negative schema will automatically capture the individual’s attention, leading to negative attentional bias. ANI is also an important reason for the occurrence, development, and maintenance of social anxiety and depression ( Brailovskaia and Margraf, 2020 ). Individuals with high levels of social anxiety specifically allocate attentional resources to negative information in the environment and social interactions, resulting in depression.

Implications

Our study can not only provide theoretical and practical support for prevention and intervention into SMA, but also contribute to improving individuals’ physical and mental health. It was found that female gender, impulsivity, self-esteem, anxiety, social anxiety, and ANI exhibited significant risk effects for SMA. In future studies, alleviating users’ anxiety, actively organizing social activities, and correcting attentional bias with attention training programs could be used to reduce the risk of SMA.

Limitations and Future Directions

The current study has some limitations. First, since this research was based on a single classroom survey, it was a relatively small study in terms of scope, and the sample was potentially unrepresentative. Second, less information was collected from the participants in the demographic characteristics portion of the survey, resulting in a lack of some sociodemographic and clinical information about participants. Third, data were collected near the end of the semester, when senior students were preparing for internship and/or employment. Thus, participants mainly belonged to junior grades. The age span is relatively narrow, which may have affected our ability to detect an effect of age on SMA. Fourth, this research was based on questionnaires and was limited by self-report measurement methods. The validity of the research may depend on the accuracy of participants’ reports. Finally, as this study was cross-sectional design, the causality between variables could not be determined.

In future studies, the scope of sampling can be further expanded to enhance the representativeness of the sample and explore the effect of age on SMA. Also, a wide range of other information about participants should be gathered through the survey to explore the effect of demographic characteristics on SMA: e.g., average daily time spent on social media, the number of social media applications, discipline background, etc. Moreover, research focused on the relationship between impulsivity, attentional biases and SMA could be combined with empirical research. For example, the Go/Stop paradigm and Stroop task could be used to assess impulsive action and attentional bias, respectively. Finally, longitudinal tracking research could be used to determine the causality between variables.

Data Availability Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Guangzhou University. Participants provided written informed consent to participate in the study.

Author Contributions

JZ designed the project and collected the data. TJ, XWa, and YX conducted statistical analyses. XWu was involved in supervision and edit manuscript drafts. All authors approved the final manuscript before submission.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

All authors are grateful for the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31970993).

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Is Social Media Addictive? Here’s What the Science Says.

A major lawsuit against Meta has placed a spotlight on our fraught relationship with online social information.

By Matt Richtel

A group of 41 states and the District of Columbia filed suit on Tuesday against Meta , the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, contending that the company knowingly used features on its platforms to cause children to use them compulsively, even as the company said that its social media sites were safe for young people.

“Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage and ultimately ensnare youth and teens,” the states said in their lawsuit filed in federal court. “Its motive is profit.”

The accusations in the lawsuit raise a deeper question about behavior: Are young people becoming addicted to social media and the internet? Here’s what the research has found.

What Makes Social Media So Compelling?

Experts who study internet use say that the magnetic allure of social media arises from the way the content plays to our neurological impulses and wiring, such that consumers find it hard to turn away from the incoming stream of information.

David Greenfield, a psychologist and founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction in West Hartford, Conn., said the devices lure users with some powerful tactics. One is “intermittent reinforcement,” which creates the idea that a user could get a reward at any time. But when the reward comes is unpredictable. “Just like a slot machine,” he said. As with a slot machine, users are beckoned with lights and sounds but, even more powerful, information and reward tailored to a user’s interests and tastes.

Adults are susceptible, he noted, but young people are particularly at risk, because the brain regions that are involved in resisting temptation and reward are not nearly as developed in children and teenagers as in adults. “They’re all about impulse and not a lot about the control of that impulse,” Dr. Greenfield said of young consumers.

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Social Media Addiction: Meaning, Symptoms, Causes, Effects, and Treatment | Essay

What is Social Media Addiction?

Similar to cell phone and internet addictions, signs and symptoms of social media addiction, 1. social media is the first thing you do in the morning., 2. you waste your time looking at nonsense and procrastinate., 3. you checked in everywhere you go., 4. you check notifications all the time., 5. you only want to contact and talk to your friends via social media., 6. you constantly monitor the “likes” and “shares” you receive., 7. craving for internet connection., 8. you take photos of almost everything., 9. social media becomes part of your life., 10. checking social media is the first thing you do whenever you are free., other mental symptoms of social media addictions, 1. experiencing less satisfaction and hence, less happiness, 2. it can promote jealousy, 3. it raises your anxiety level and affects your overall well-being, what causes social media addiction, how social media addiction affects your life, 1. cyberbullying, 2. distraction and drop in productivity, 3. fatigue and stress, 4. peer pressure and the desire to compare, 5. other related health issue, how to cure social media addiction, 1. get rid of notifications, 2. limit your time spent on social media, 3. delete the apps, 4. make yourself busy, 5. restrict your time spent on social media through apps, 6. create your own reward system, 7. disconnect and unplug yourself, 8. never bring your smartphone into your bedroom, 9. get an accountability partner, 10. do a self-reflection every week.

There is absolutely no problem and nothing wrong with using social media. Some people use it to check updates from their friends and to stay connected. Some people use it for entertainment and to kill time.

The problem comes when someone becomes addicted to social media and overspends their time on those platforms, as a result, their bad habit serious affected their lives in a negative way. And this is obviously something that you want to avoid.

Let’s take Facebook as an example. Facebook is the biggest social media and used by the most people in the world. It has 1.13 billion daily active users and if it represents a country, it will be the most populated country in the world.

More importantly, Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg said that on average, people would spend about 50 minutes a day on Facebook, Instagram, and also the messenger platform. Well, 50 minutes a day does not sound like much.

However, you should understand that there are only 24 hours a day, and an average person sleeps about 8 hours, and this means that one-sixteenth of an average person’s waking time is spent on Facebook.

Spending 50 minutes a day on Facebook will accumulate and become an extremely time-consuming activity that will eat up most of your life.

Do you know that studies have shown that people read only about 19 minutes a day on average and most people spend only about 17 minutes in sports or exercise each day? It is unacceptable to see people spend more time on Facebook than they do on exercise and reading for improvement.

And this is one of the main concerns and also the reasons social media addiction has quickly becoming a hot topic lately.

If you overspend your time on social media like on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, you may have become a social media addict, it is just that you did not know about it.

Social media addiction is a term that is often used to refer to someone who spends too much time on social media like Facebook and Twitter or other forms of social media. As a result, it affects the person’s daily life.

Although there is no official medical recognition on social media addiction as a disease, the negative habit of excessive use of social media has become a subject of much discussion and research.

Addiction simply means a compulsive behavior that leads to negative effects. And in this case, social media addiction is referring to someone who has a compulsive use of social media. For example, people who constantly check updates on Facebook or “stalking” other people for hours.

However, it is difficult to tell if someone is a social media addict. If you spend a few hours into social media checking updates and reading random tweets on Twitter, does that make you an addict?

Some people claimed that they spend time on social media to read the news and to find entertainment to kill time; they are not addicted to it. So how can we tell if someone is an addict?

At Harvard University, researchers have performed MRI scan on people’s brains to see what happened when they talk about themselves, which is an essential part of what most people do in social media. The result showed that self-disclosure communication creates pleasure in the brain. In conclusion, it makes people happy and high when they talk and think about themselves.

There is no direct conclusion in determining if someone is a social media addict, however, many physicians have observed similar symptoms such as depression, anxiety, psychological disorders, and more are the proofs of social media addiction.

Some researchers agreed that social media addiction is similar to cell phone and internet addiction disorder. These types of disorders are not new and people have started talking about it since decades ago.

Even back then, people have said that the heavy usage of internet and cell phone may cause serious problems to work performance and negatively impact one’s life, but there is no official mentioning that social media addiction is a type of disorder.

There are reasons why people are regarding social media addiction as a type of disorder, just like addiction to a cell phone, the internet, and even alcohol.

Every once in a while, when you check updates on social media, or after you have posted something, you want to know who will react to your post. And whenever people give you a “like” or commented something on your post, it makes you feel great. You will feel that you are not alone, you are being connected and someone cares about you.

More importantly, if people “like” or “share” what you have posted, you feel happy as if people agree with what you have posted and they like it. When this happens, your brain cells stimulate dopamine, a chemical released by your neurons to signal other nerve cells that will make you feel good and happy.

This is one of the core reasons causing the addiction. These rewards and the pleasure you receive from using social media will condition and program your mind to crave for more. If it continues over the long term, it will quickly become your habit and the disorder will eventually take place.

While there is no clear sign of telling if someone is a social media addict from the official medical standpoint, but there are plenty of signs and symptoms that clearly identify if you are addicted to social media.

Some of the signs and symptoms are clear-cut and to the point, while some are more difficult to identify and require effort to reveal.

10 Common Signs You Are Addicted to Social Media

If you want to know whether you are a social media addict, look at how you live your life and how you spend your time.

Social media addiction can be considered a habitual disorder and the signs can be identified from what you do each day.

Below are the 10 common signs of a social media addict. If you are repeating most of these signs below, there is a high chance that you are addicted to social media.

What is the first thing you do once you wake up in the morning? If your answer is to check Facebook or update your status on any social media platform, it is a clear sign that you are addicted to social media.

Almost every addict will start their day with a morning routine of checking and pointlessly scrolling through what they have missed on social media after the long hours of sleep at night.

Most social media addicts feel like they have lost a lot of time and are outdated, thus, they want to check the status and see who has posted something new.

One thing that makes people less productive and accomplishes less in life is procrastination. And social media is a big cause and also the motivator for procrastination.

People can spend hours scrolling mindlessly reading news and updates that have no meaning at all. They can be a form of entertainment, but in reality, most of the things shared through on social media will not do any good to your life.

For example, some people scroll through videos of funny cats, while others “stalk” others and some swipe through their ex-girlfriend’s pictures from years ago. Most of these activities are time wasters and they do not add any value to your life.

Do you ever have any friend who wants to snap a picture for every meal he or she has and share it to the social media or try to check in the location? Or perhaps you are doing the same?

Well, it is understood that if you are trying to do this occasionally when you are on holidays, but if you are doing it too often and at almost every location, you may want to seriously consider your own behavior.

A lot of people especially the youngsters will take out their smartphone to take a picture of their food, post on social media and check in the location before they eat. This can annoy those who are at the same table or people who are less privileged to enjoy the food.

Checking notification can be a normal thing to do when your phone buzz. However, if you are checking it all the time regardless of whether your phone buzzes, you may suffer serious addiction.

People check their phone because they receive notification, and most of the time, the notifications are from social media. Which means to say that these notifications are not really that important in your life.

Some chronic social media addicts will even have imaginary notifications in their head. They imagined their phone vibrates or receives notification, hence they want to check it every minute. This can be a serious issue that needs handle immediately.

This is another sign of showing that you are a social media addict and the disorder slowly takes place in your life. Gone are the days of phone calls and text messages.

With the introduction of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, people may choose to contact you using those platforms and avoid real physical contact.

If you choose to use social media as the only means of contacting and talking to other people, the sign is clear that you are a social media addict.

As what you have learned from the above that checking social media rewards people because of the “likes” they receive from their friends. And this can be addictive.

The reward of getting “likes” from a picture posted on Facebook means a lot to a social media addict. They are a form of acceptance and quickly become a habit to want to check who react to your post.

The problem will grow deeper when the addict goes into double-figure likes on Instagram or platform.

The existence of internet is not the issue, the real culprit is that with internet access, people can easily connect themselves to social media. And when there is no internet connection available, the addicts will feel stress and uneasy.

Social media addict cannot live a life without internet, even for just a few hours. They will feel anxiety and choose to enter places with an internet connection.

There are plenty of videos and photos that went viral showing someone involved in an accident, but the bystander did nothing besides taking photo or video for social media use instead of helping the ones in need.

This has become a serious issue and society condemns the ethical of the one who chooses to share the incident on social media than giving a helping hand.

If you are taking photos of everything, from the food you eat, the movie you watch, to constantly taking selfies and sharing them on social media, you should keep an eye on your behavior.

Social media has been created to connect people with ease and to build relationships. There is nothing wrong with this, but if it has become part of your life and you cannot live without checking Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, you know that something is wrong.

How much time do you spend on social media each day on average? Do you spend a lot of time on them and they have become part of your life? If so, you need to do something about it and never let this habit grows into disorder.

A clear sign of how social media becomes part of your life can be seen if you have lost interest in other activities and responsibilities. You choose to scroll your phone instead of going out to exercise. You choose to waste time on Facebook rather than washing the dishes.

So would you do if you whenever you are free? Do you daydream about achieving your goals and visualize about realizing your dreams? Do you exercise and go for a walk when you have the extra time? Do you call and talk to someone you love? Or do you choose to spend your time on social media whenever you have the free time?

How you spend your free time will greatly determine your life. Downtime should be wisely spent for better and more valuable activities and events, not to be wasted on social media.

While this is not to say that you should not spend any free time on social media at all, but you must keep a close eye on how much time you use up on social media, and not overdo it.

Besides the clear signs of how you spend and use your time, there are also mental symptoms that can be identified from a social media addict.

One study has found that social media users tend to have less happiness and satisfaction in life. The reason being that Facebook conjures up a perception of social isolation.

Try to imagine you spend most of your time facing the screen either from your computer or smartphone, you don’t involve in any physical interaction with other people, how would you feel?

The lack of face-to-face connect will make people feel lonely and less happiness. While social media does provide the convenience to connect with others, one cannot fully neglect the need for physical and face-to-face interaction with other humans.

The more time people spend on social media, the more socially isolated they will be. And this can make you experience less happiness and less satisfaction.

People love to compare with each other especially in social media. Studies have found that most people admit that seeing other people travel and having a great vacation or showing material possessions are envy-inducing.

This can make social media the ground for invidious feelings. The jealousy feeling can make a person want to make his or her own life look better, and post jealousy-inducing posts of their own. Apart from that, the feeling of jealousy can trigger depression too.

People who are addicted to social media will never sit still whenever they are free. They will take out their smartphone or check on updates from their computer regularly. And if they do not have the access to social media, they will feel anxiety and worry.

This is because social media addicts depend too much on the social media either to kill time, to have entertainment or to satisfy their own negative behavior cravings. And whenever they stop using it, they tend to feel anxiety.

Besides that, studies have also shown that there are other negative effects that will affect the overall well-being of the person who cannot get rid of social media.

Just like gambling, alcohol, and drugs, social media addiction seems harmless, but it is a growing problem that needs to solve because the effect it brings can lead to depression, anxiety and more.

Whenever you receive notifications from social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, your brain will release a small amount of dopamine. This makes you feel good on a chemical level. Each time you see a notification, your brain gets excited.

And over the long term, this will form a habit and you will fall into the addictive behavior. Plus, whenever you see someone “like” or “share” what you posted on social media, you feel good and in theory, according to experts, your sense of self-worth will increase.

What really happens is that you are relying on your smartphone and computer for social interaction instead of engaging in a face-to-face interaction. At the end of the day, you will feel isolated because your interactions are online and not in the physical world. This will lower your self-esteem.

It is the “reward” that is the most important neurological reason responsible for the compulsive usage of the social network. When the brain created dopamine, it also creates the desire so that the person will search for and want more of the reward from using social media.

Social media has grown and become a big part of our daily life these days. People just cannot ignore the power of social media today. Even big companies are utilizing the power of social media to create their marketing channel to influence their audience.

The problem is that without control, social media can overtake and control your life rather than you control them. Most people underestimated how social media can influence and affect their lives until it is too late to notice the effect and to change.

Take marriage as an example, according to a survey done by 2,000 married Britons conducted by a law firm in the UK, one in seven married people said they would consider divorce because of how their partners were behaving on social media like Facebook, Snapchat, Skype, Twitter, and Whatsapp.

Besides, the survey also found that as high as 25% of the married couples had at least an argument with their partners on a weekly basis and the issue was related to social media usage.

Therefore, social media truly can affect one’s life. Below are some other ways how this new interactive technology can affect your life.

People can say anything they want and still get away on the internet. This has led to cyberbullying, where people use the electronic communication to send messages in an intimidating or threatening nature.

Cyberbullying can be a serious issue where the victim can experience a huge amount of stress that leads to a decline in mental health.

There are also cases where cyberbullying have led to suicide cases and caused death.

Do you know that social media is a huge distraction and it and interrupt your life in every level? Try to imagine you are writing an important article and suddenly someone gives you a buzz on Facebook, you will lose your flow and this will distract your focus.

Many studies have found that the more people engage with social media, the less the person able to focus on his work. It leads to decrease productivity and increase in procrastination.

Furthermore, if you spend your most productive hours on social media, you will use up most of your willpower and energy there, this will make you less likely to have the motivation and energy to work on more important work when it is time to work.

Therefore, spend your time and use social media responsibility. It can lower your performance and make you decrease your creativity.

What do you think would happen if you stare at your computer screen or your cell phone for a long period? You will feel tired and stressed.

Plus, when you are checking social media, you are constantly switching from one task to another because there are so many things to check out and to see. This information overload will wear out your brain power and make you feel fatigue.

Every time your brain thinks, you use your willpower and energy. And when you spend most of your time on social media, you are spending your energy there. Instead of using your downtime to rest, you use it to check updates on social media. As a result, your brain uses the energy to process information and stresses you out.

Another common way how social media can affect your life is through peer pressure. People are afraid to miss out and they love to compare themselves with other people. You want to become part of the community and part of the group, this is why you are using the social network in the first place.

As human nature, you will want to compare yourself with other and this will cause peer pressure. You want to be like everyone else. When you see your friends sharing their latest vacation in Paris, you want to do the same too.

Over compare will create anxiety and give rise to the negative feelings such as jealousy. This can evolve into a more serious issue and cause mental health disorder.

Apart from all that being mentioned, there will be other related health issues such as blurry vision due to strain eyes as the result of long hours watching the screen.

And if you are using social media from a cell phone, you may suffer back and neck pain issue as you have to consistently bend down your neck to look at your phone.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is a medical condition due to compression of the median nerve as it travels through the wrist at the carpal tunnel. This is due to long hours of repeating the same movement with your hands and arms, especially when you use your phone or face the computer over a long period.

Experts have also found that people who face computer screens and their phones over long hours may cause headaches at times.

Besides, if checking social media is the first and the last thing you did before bed, this routine will disturb your sleep and cause you to suffer side-effects from sleep deprivation.

If you think that you spend too much of your precious time on social media or perhaps you are addicted to it, not to worry because there are ways to get rid of the bad behavioral issue.

Like all other illnesses and problems, there are cures and solutions to social media addiction. The key is to have the commitment to follow through some of the suggested steps below and make social media a tool that you can control rather than let it control your life.

Below are some useful suggestions on how you can cure social media addiction.

One of the key factors people are getting addicted to social media is because they are often distracted by notifications.

In fact, notifications can act as a reminder to the users to check their phones or computers. Therefore, the most effective way to solve this is to turn off the notifications.

If social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter cannot notify you on any updates, there is a higher chance that you will not check on them. It is a great first step in getting rid of social media addiction.

Plus, if you always get distracted by notifications, you cannot concentrate well on your tasks at hand. It can cause negative feelings like stress and anger.

Besides turning off the notifications, another thing you can do is to limit the time you spend on social media.

For example, choose to spend only 15 minutes a day on social media. You can check Facebook each day, but make sure you use only minimal time or you use it only at a certain hour of the day.

You can set a rule such as “no social media in the office”, and never commit to it. This way, you can focus on your work and improve your productivity. You will only use social media and check updates outside your office when you are out for lunch or during downtime.

This technique can work extremely well if you stick to the rule and honor the promise to yourself.

Another crucial key people are addicted to social media is because of its convenience to access those platforms. All you need to do is to swipe your phone and you can check on updates on Facebook, post something on Twitter and upload a photo on Instagram.

No doubt that technology has brought conveniences to our lives, perhaps, too convenient until we indulge ourselves and lost ourselves in the world of online communication.

If all else fails, delete the App. Yes, you read it right. Just delete the App so that there is no way you can check the updates or get notifications from the convenience of your smartphone.

Once you have deleted the App, the only way to use social media is through your computer, which will be less convenient. This will directly lower down your desire to want to use them.

This can be an effective way to seriously get rid of social media and can work as the ultimate solution for the addiction.

Yes, whenever you are free, you will automatically pick up your smartphone and spend time on social media. In order to prevent this, just make yourself busy.

Replace your usual free time that you used for social media for other things. For instance, go for sports. What are your hobbies? Do you love to read? Do you want to play the piano? Do you love jogging? Do you want to go for a swim? Or do you like fishing?

Make yourself busy so that you will have no free time to check on social media. When your time is fully occupied or when you are too concentrate on something else, you will never want to check what’s going on on Facebook or get updates from Twitter.

This is another effective way to limit your time usage on social media. There are plenty of Apps you can use to restrict your time spent on a social network such as Offtime, Moment, AppDetox, BreakFree, and Stay on Task.

These Apps are designed in such a way that they will restrict your time spent on most social platforms. Once you have exceeded your time spent there, most will log you out or block you from using them.

These Apps are useful especially for the addicts and children who spend too much of their time on social media.

Now, people are becoming addicted to social media because every time they check updates from these platforms, they feel good and their brain rewarded them with a “happy” feeling.

You can also create your own reward system to fight against the reward you get from using social media. All you need to do is to reward yourself every time when you resist your urge to use social media or you successfully stay within the allowed time usage.

Praise yourself, get yourself a snack, give a pat on your back, or go do something else that you love to do. When you reward yourself after you resist using social media, you are training your brain that there is something better than spending time on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

This method is like deleting the Apps, but instead of deleting, you choose to disconnect yourself from the internet or simply switch off your phone to get unplugged.

When you have no way to get access to the internet, you will never get the chance to use social media. In fact, most successful and productive people will get unplug in the evening. They prefer to spend quality time with their lovers than to mindlessly scroll Facebook for updates.

Do you know that as much as 61% of people check their phones 5 minutes after they wake up according to Deloitte Global Mobile Consumer Survey? And more than 96% will do that within an hour.

The study also found that as high as 74% of people will check their phones about 15 minutes before they go to sleep. This survey simply shows that most people will use their phone the first thing after they wake up and the last thing before they sleep.

And most of the time, they check their phone for social media updates. So to get rid of this bad habit, set up a rule to not allow phones into your bedroom.

Get yourself an alarm clock instead of using your phone as an alarm. And leave your phone in the living or anywhere outside your bedroom.

Most people understand that they should decrease their time spent on social media, but they just don’t do it. The reason is that they are not being accountable. And to solve this, get yourself an accountability partner.

Tell your spouse, your parents, your kids, your colleagues, your boss and your friends to remind you to stop if they spot you spend time on social platforms.

This will create a pressure and force you to stop. It is a great way because you are making a public commitment and others are helping you rather than leaving you to solve the problem all by yourself.

How can you tell if you are spending too much time or are addicted to social media? You don’t have to wait for other people to tell you this. Just do a self-reflection at least once every week.

Ask yourself what have you done throughout the week and where do you spend the most time in? What have you accomplished and how do you want your following week to be like?

Asking self-reflective questions are good because they allow you to evaluate yourself and understand if you are being productive and are moving forward.

A social media addict will never move forward in life because they waste too much time on unnecessary things. In other words, they are not productive. Thus, when you reflect on your life each week, you will understand where you are and which area you need to improve.

Finally, please understand technology is there to help us move forward, it is not created to waste our time and make us less productive.

Social media can be a great way to connect with people, but you must not neglect the importance of physical communication with others too. Never let these online social platforms take away your precious time or control your life, you should be the one that controls them as a tool.

If you found yourself spending too much time on social media and are addicted to it, follow the advice above, get rid of the disorder and gain back the control over your life.

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The role of social media motivation in enhancing social responsibility.

Graphical Abstract

1. Introduction

2. literature review, 2.1. social responsibility in media, 2.2. linking social responsibility to media practices, 2.3. impact of social responsibility on media content and public perception, 3. theoretical foundation and hypothesis development, 3.1. the uses and gratification theory (ugt), 3.2. hypothesis development base in the usage and gratification theory (ugt), 4. general overview of social media in jordan, 5. research methodology, 6. selection of sample size and sample technique, 7. data analysis, 8. measurement scale, construct reliability, and validity.

Components of the Table 1. Variables: This column lists the different constructs (or variables) measured in the study. Each construct is a specific trait or behavior that the study aims to quantify. Constructs are divided into higher-order and first-order constructs. For example, “Social Media Motivation” is a second-order construct, and it is broken down into first-order constructs like “Information Seeking” and “Giving Information”. 2. Items: These are the individual statements (questions) related to each construct that respondents answered in the survey using a 7-Likert scale. These items are designed to measure specific aspects of each construct. For example, under “Information Seeking”, one of the items is IS1—“I use social media to obtain information about things that interest me”. 3. Composite Reliability (CR): CR is a measure of the internal consistency of the items in each construct, indicating how well these items represent the construct. A CR value of 0.7 or above is typically considered acceptable, indicating good reliability ( Hair et al. 2014 ). As shown in Table 1 , all constructs indicate good reliability. 4. Average Variance Extracted (AVE): This statistic measures the amount of variance in the responses explained by the construct relative to the amount due to measurement errors. An AVE value of 0.5 or higher is desirable as it suggests that more than half of the variance in the items is due to the construct in question.

9. Results and Discussion

Original sample (O): This is the observed effect size or coefficient from the original data sample. In this case, it is 0.276, indicating a positive relationship between “Social Media Motivation” and “Social Responsibility”.
Sample mean (M): This represents the average effect size computed across multiple samples or bootstrapping. The mean value here is 0.279, very close to the original sample, suggesting consistency in the observed effect across samples.
Standard deviation (STDEV): This column shows the standard deviation of the effect size across the samples, which is 0.054 in this case. A smaller standard deviation indicates that the estimates of the effect size are relatively stable across different samples.
T statistics (|O/STDEV|): The T-statistic is calculated by dividing the original sample coefficient by its standard deviation. The resulting value, 5.160, is a measure of how, for many standard deviations, the observed effect is not zero. A higher T-statistic typically indicates stronger evidence against the null hypothesis (which would usually state that there is no effect).
p values: The p -value quantifies the probability of observing the effect size if the null hypothesis was true. A p -value of 0.000 suggests that the effect is statistically significant, meaning there is a very small probability that the observed relationship occurred by chance.

10. Research Contributions

11. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Click here to enlarge figure

	Items		CR	AVE
Information Seeking—First Order	IS1—“I use social media to obtain information about things that interest me”. IS2—“I use social media to keep up with current issues and events”. IS3—“Social media helps me to store useful information.” IS4—“I use social media to learn about what is new.”	( ) CR = 0.860	0.959	0.501
Giving Information—First Order	GI1—“I can provide others with information using social media.” GI2—“I use social media to contribute to a pool of information.” GI3—“I use social media to share information that might be entertaining to others.” GI4—“I use social media to share information that might be useful to others.”	( ) CR = 0.855
Self-Status—First Order	ST1—“I use social media to impress other users.” ST2—“I use social media to make myself look cool.” ST3—“I use social media because I want to be popular.”	( ) CR = 0.863
Social Interaction—First Order	SI1—“Social media allows me to stay in touch with other users.” SI2—“Social media lets me meet interesting people.” SI3—“Social media makes me feel like I belong to a community.” SI4—“Social media connects me with people who share some of my values.”	( ) CR = 0.922
Entertainment—First Order	E1—“Social media helps me pass the time when I am bored.” E2—“Social media helps me to get away from pressures.” E3—“I use social media to play.” E4—“Social media can help me to experience enjoyable media content.” E5—“Social media is full of excitement.”	( ) CR = 0.882
Relaxation—First Order	R1—“Social media helps me to relax.” R2—“Social media relieves stress.” R3—“Social media provides me with many hours of leisure.” R4—“Social media takes my mind off things.”	( ) CR = 0.836
Being Fashionable—First Order	F1—“I use social media to look fashionable.” F2—“I use social media to look stylish.” F3—“I use social media because everyone else is doing it.”	( ) CR = 0.811
	SR1—“Being useful to others is our moral obligation.” SR2—“It is great for me to be able to selflessly help other people.” SR3—“Helping someone is the best way for that person to help you in the future.” SR4—“ By helping others, we help ourselves, since all the good we give closes the circle and comes back to us.”	( )	0.899	0.756

	Heterotrait–Monotrait Ratio (HTMT)
Being Fashionable <-> Entertainment	0.682
Giving Information <-> Entertainment	0.843
Giving Information <-> Fashionable	0.679
Information Seeking <-> Entertainment	0.612
Information Seeking <-> Being Fashionable	0.736
Information Seeking <-> Giving Information	0.714
Relaxation <-> Entertainment	0.799
Relaxation <-> Being Fashionable	0.633
Relaxation <-> Giving Information	0.847
Relaxation <-> Information Seeking	0.620
Self-Status <-> Entertainment	0.833
Self-Status <-> Being Fashionable	0.656
Self-Status <-> Giving Information	0.836
Self-Status <-> Information Seeking	0.717
Self-Status <-> Relaxation	0.718
Social Interaction <-> Entertainment	0.543
Social Interaction <-> Being Fashionable	0.721
Social Interaction <-> Giving Information	0.666
Social Interaction <-> Information Seeking	0.762
Social Interaction <-> Relaxation	0.611
Social Interaction <-> Self-Status	0.654
Social Media Motivation <-> Entertainment	0.771
Social Media Motivation <-> Being Fashionable	0.837
Social Media Motivation <-> Giving Information	0.972
Social Media Motivation <-> Information Seeking	0.880
Social Media Motivation <-> Relaxation	0.651
Social Media Motivation <-> Self-Status	0.617
Social Media Motivation <-> Social Interaction	0.841
Social Responsibility <-> Entertainment	0.342
Social Responsibility <-> Being Fashionable	0.254
Social Responsibility <-> Giving Information	0.295
Social Responsibility <-> Information Seeking	0.180
Social Responsibility <-> Relaxation	0.262
Social Responsibility <-> Self Status	0.306
Social Responsibility <-> Social Interaction	0.187
Social Responsibility <-> Social Media Motivation	0.297

Independent Variable	R-Square	Q-Square
Social Responsibility	0.076	0.069

	Original Sample (O)	Sample Mean (M)	Standard Deviation (STDEV)	T Statistics (\|O/STDEV\|)	p Values	Result
H1. Social Media Motivation -> Social Responsibility	0.276	0.279	0.054	5.160	0.000	acceptable

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Hatamleh, I.H.M.; Aissani, R.; Alduwairi, R.F.S. The Role of Social Media Motivation in Enhancing Social Responsibility. Soc. Sci. 2024 , 13 , 409. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13080409

Hatamleh IHM, Aissani R, Alduwairi RFS. The Role of Social Media Motivation in Enhancing Social Responsibility. Social Sciences . 2024; 13(8):409. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13080409

Hatamleh, Islam Habis Mohammad, Rahima Aissani, and Raneem Farouq Suleiman Alduwairi. 2024. "The Role of Social Media Motivation in Enhancing Social Responsibility" Social Sciences 13, no. 8: 409. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13080409

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