Addictive Technology: Prevalence and Potential Implications of Problematic Social Media Use

Social media is fully integrated into society today, and the use of social media is currently the main activity of Internet-users (JassoMedrano & López-Rosales, 2018). With the advent of smartphones and the wide variety of platforms available, individuals can now seamlessly switch from site to site when browsing online. Indeed, Hardy and Castonguay (2018) found that millennials switch between media sites an average of 27 times per hour. Currently, the most popular social media platforms are Facebook and Instagram. As of 2017, Facebook had approximately 2 billion monthly users, which corresponds to over 25% of the world’s population (Østergaard, 2017). Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, a highly visual social media platform, gave way to a broadened user base to include younger generations, in addition to the older population already found on Facebook. Instagram grew rapidly, beginning in 2010 and already had over 500 million users by 2016 (Sherlock & Wagstaff, 2018). Facebook’s stated mission is “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. ” Consistent with that mission, Facebook was originally created to connect college students but has since expanded to connect people from around the world. With billions of users spending roughly 50 minutes per day on social media sites (Brailovskaia & Margraf, 2016), it seems as though these platforms may allow individuals the opportunity to express their innate need to belong (Hardy & Castonguay, 2018). Social connection is conceptualized by psychologists as a vital human need, and researchers have long known that social relationships decrease the risk for a host of problems such as depression, alcoholism, and lowered immune response (Cacioppo & Cacioppo, 2014; House, Landis, & Umberson, 1988). As such, social media companies could potentially be viewed as providing a valuable service that contributes to the well-being of a significant proportion of the world’s population. ABSTRACT. College students spend a significant amount of time using social media, and there is evidence that at least some of the rapid growth in social media use may be driven by social media companies’ efforts to implement behavioral engineering strategies designed to maximize the amount of time individuals spend on their platforms. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether such behavioral engineering strategies are leading individuals to become addicted to social media and to examine whether those who report problematic social media use (PSMU) may be at risk for mental health problems. Two-hundred ninety-four college students completed an online survey asking about indicators of PSMU, mental health symptoms, and well-being. Depending on the cut score used, between 8.2% and 51.3% of college students may be at risk for PSMU. No matter which cut score was used, participants identified as being at risk for PSMU reported higher levels of mental health symptoms across several domains, as well as lower well-being. These results suggest that individuals who spend time using social media platforms may be at risk for PSMU and highlight the need for clinicians and researchers to establish empirically based diagnostic criteria, as well as effective treatments, for PSMU.