SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND ADDICTION

If you use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Tumblr, WhatsApp, or Reddit (to name just a few), you are a user of social media.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using social media. After all, technologies such as Skype, Instagram, and Facebook allow us to stay in contact with family and friends on the other side of the planet. But when someone spends hours a day updating their status, uploading pictures, commenting on walls, playing Facebook games or searching for friends to add … it is safe to say there is a problem. If you spend unhealthy amounts of time on these platforms, you may have become a social media addict – it is just that you don’t know it yet.

Don’t be fooled: behavioural addictions, like spending time on social media, can be serious. Often it goes hand-in-hand with other Internet applications that a teenager is addicted to, such as online gaming or sexting. The focus becomes the digital world and the person is less and less engaged in the physical world of relationships.

What is social media addiction?

Although social media addiction is not a formal clinical diagnosis, it is fair to say that many people spend far too much time on social media and may at the very least describe themselves as being obsessed, if not addicted. In recent years the mental health community has become increasingly interested in the impact that modern technology has on our lives. Generally speaking, addiction is any compulsive behaviour that has a negative impact on someone’s life. In the case of social media addiction, it refers to someone compulsively using social media causing it to have a negative affect them.

What makes social media addictive?

Whenever people give you a like, comment on your post, or share it, it makes you feel validated, as if they agree with you and your self-esteem is boosted. You also feel less alone, you feel a connection to others and as if someone cares about you. This is because these likes/ comments/shares trigger the reward centre in your brain. Brain cells are stimulated to release dopamine – a chemical that signals other nerve cells to improve your mood. This is why it can be addictive.

MRI scans of the brains of subjects taken while talking about themselves reveal that self-disclosure communication activates the pleasure areas in the brain. Put simply, it makes people happy when they talk and think about themselves. And talking about yourself is a large part of what you do when you use social media.

These rewards and the pleasures you receive from using social media condition your mind to crave more. If sustained over the long-term, it can quickly become a habit and grow into a full-blown disorder.

How do you know you are addicted to social media?

It is not that easy to tell if someone is a social media addict. If you spend a few hours a day checking updates and reading random posts, does that make you an addict? What if you mostly use social media to read news or find entertainment to pass the time – are you then also a social media addict?

Behavioural symptoms

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. Because social media addiction is classified as a habitual disorder, the signs can be identified from what you do each day. If you identify with most of the behaviour described below, there is a high chance that you are addicted to social media:

• social media is the first thing you check in the morning or whenever you are free

• you waste your time looking at nonsense and procrastinate other tasks

• you check in (share your location) everywhere you go

• you compulsively check notifications

• you only want to interact with and talk to your friends via social media and rarely socialise face-to-face (and video calls don’t count!)

• you tend to over-share (saying too much and regretting it afterwards)

• you constantly monitor how many likes and shares your posts receive

• you spend so much time on social media that your relationships start to suffer

• you crave having internet connection when there is none available

• you take photos of almost everything and post them

• you use social media to forget about personal problems

• social media is your whole life; you lose interest in other activities and neglect responsibilities

*Psychological symptoms *

• You generally feel dissatisfied and depressed: One reason is that social media conjures up a perception that everyone else is always happy and living their best lives. You end up comparing your life to an unattainable ideal when all you see is people curating a perfect version of themselves. You find yourself also wanting to post jealousy-inducing updates of their own. Another reason you get depressed is because of the lack of real human contact. While social media does provide the convenience of connecting with others, one cannot entirely ignore our basic need as humans for physical interaction with others. Ironically the more time people spend on social media, the more socially isolated they become.

• You experience raised levels of anxiety: Social media addicts can never sit still when unoccupied. They obsessively check updates on their mobile phones or laptops. And if they do not have access to social media, it triggers feelings of anxiety and worry.

Other negative effects of social media

• Cyberbullying: People feel they can say whatever they want and get away on the internet, including on social media platforms. When people intimidate or threaten others online it is a very serious issue because the victim experiences huge amounts of stress – even resulting in suicide in some cases.

• Distraction and a drop in productivity: Not only are people unable to focus on work because of constant notifications interrupting them, but they often put off starting to work in the first place because they’d rather be on social media. If you spend your most productive hours on social media, you will have less motivation and energy to work on more important tasks later.

• Fatigue and stress: Staring at your computer screen or mobile phone for hours on end will make you feel tired and stressed. Social media is overstimulating on a sensory level – there are so many things to check out and to see – and this is tiring. Instead of resting properly when you take a break from work, you go on social media and become fatigued and stresses out as a result.

• Health issues:

◊ blurry vision due to strained eyes and/or headaches from staring at the screen for long hours

◊ back and neck pain from constantly bending your neck down to look at your phone

◊ carpal tunnel syndrome in your wrist from repetitive motion of your hands and arms when typing on the phone or computer

◊ sleep deprivation as a side effect of disturbed sleep, which results from checking social media just before bed

How to overcome social media addiction?

Like all other illnesses and problems, there are cures and solutions to social media addiction. The key is to commit to follow through. Make social media a tool that you control; rather than it controlling your life. Some useful suggestions:

• Get rid of 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. 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.

• Limit the time you spend on social media: Choose to spend only a certain amount of time a day on social media. Or allow yourself to only go onto the platform at a certain time of day. A good strategy is to restrict yourself from using social media in certain places, e.g. at the office, the dinner table, or the bedroom – get yourself an alarm clock instead of using your phone as an alarm. There are a number of apps designed to help you limit time spent on social media by logging you out or blocking you from using the platform when you exceed your allocated time. Examples of such apps are Offtime, Moment, AppDetox, BreakFree, and Stay on Task.

• Delete apps from your mobile phone: If all else fails, delete the app from your mobile phone. Just delete the app so there is no way you can check updates or get notifications from the convenience of your smartphone. Using your computer for social media is less convenient. The effort it takes will automatically lower your desire to want to go onto social media.

• Keep yourself occupied: Keep yourself busy so that you will have no free time to check social media and not automatically pick up your smartphone. Replace free time spent on social media with other activities, e.g. sports or hobbies.

• Create your own reward system: Reward yourself every time you resist the urge to use social media or you successfully stay within the allowed time usage: praise yourself, get yourself a snack or do some other activity you enjoy. In so doing you are teaching your brain that there is something better than spending time on social media.

• Disconnect and unplug yourself: Instead of merely deleting social media apps, you can completely disconnect yourself from the Internet or simply switch off your phone to unplug. When you have no way to access the Internet, you avoid the temptation to use social media. It is a good idea to do this every evening – rather spending quality time with your family than to mindlessly scrolling for updates.

• Get an accountability partner: Most people understand that they should decrease their time spent on social media, but they just can’t do it. Tell your parents, your siblings, your classmates and your friends to remind you to stop if they spot you spending time on social media platforms. This will create social pressure and force you to stop. It is highly effective because you are making a public commitment and others are helping you rather than leaving you to solve the problem all by yourself.

• Do a weekly self-reflection: Ask yourself what you have spent the most time on over the previous week. Review what you have accomplished and what set goals for the following week? Asking these self-reflective questions allows you to evaluate yourself and keep yourself on track.