Social Media Addiction

In the previous research that precedes this paper, the use of social medial at the workplace has revealed both beneficence and detrimental effects on users. Addiction is among the negative effects associated with the use of social media. Notably, this disadvantage came about in the course of the research concerning social media usage at the workplace. The initial purpose of the work was to identify the effects of social media at my workplace, and devise an intervention strategy since increased usage of social media leads to reduced productivity, addiction, cyber-bullying, and is prone to a privacy breach. This work probes social media addiction. Excessive use of social media leads to addictions mostly to teenagers since they are unable to self-control. The addiction affects a victim’s health and relationships negatively, like traditional addictions.

Excessive use of social media

Increased level of exposure to social media is considered excessive. According to Zendle & Bowden-Jones (2019), a huge number of people have at least one social medial platform, and 20% of adults spend at least five hours on social medial every day. Studies have shown that people are compelled to maintain their social networks in a certain way, which leads to excessive use (Griffiths, Kuss & Demetrovics, 2014). Concerns about the excessive screen time spent by medial social users have lasted a decade barely but have garnered significant critique.

 These concerns arise from the observation and research findings that most social media users end up increasingly relying on them for updates and keeping in touch with peers. However, the excessive use of social media has the same compelling force of addiction as that of gambling (Griffiths, Kuss & Demetrovics, 2014). The social implication of the addiction in the society is increased cost of mental health care, and reduced number of active workers in the industry. Griffiths, Lopez-Fernandez, Throuvala, Pontes & Kuss (2018) focus on the health implication of the excessive use of social medial but does it comprehensively.

Teenagers and self-control

Most social media addicts are teenagers. As reported by Zendle & Bowden-Jones (2019), 20% of teenagers spend at least five hours of screen time browsing through social media platforms. The addiction is caused by fear of missing out, addiction to smartphones, and nomophobia (Griffiths & Kuss, 2017). Other studies have shown that teenagers get into medial social addiction since they lack rigid self-control.

Griffiths & Kuss (2017) find that research on the use of social medial by teenagers dates back to the year 2011, but the work of former scholars only investigated the use of Facebook. As of now, there are many social media platforms, and some are possible to register different accounts for one person. Interestingly, the driving force into social media addiction among teenagers and early adults is fear. The effects of addiction manifest as behavioral changes or illness, which extend to adulthood (Griffiths, Kuss & Demetrovics, 2014). In that perspective, social media addiction affects victims’ relationships and health.

Effect on relationships

Social media addiction may lead to poor socialization and unhealthy relationships. As mentioned, people are compelled to maintain their social networks in a certain way. Besides, one can choose what social networks to join or who to socialize with (Griffiths, Kuss & Demetrovics, 2014). In a way, that opens a frame to bad influence, which may result in unhealthy relationships afterward. Besides, addiction consumes all the time that may be spent with friends and family in person to person interactions, thus resulting in poor socialization.

Social medial addiction is associated with unfaithfulness and jealousy in social relationships such as marriages. Abbasi (2019) reports that social media is an active avenue for alternative romantic sources that are disguised and social network friends. While this topic is not extensively explored, Abbasi finds a correlation between excessive usage of SNSs and infidelity. Hence, with increased social medial addiction, society is likely to populate with broken marriages and people who have weak social relationships.

Effects on health

Besides the relationship, social medial has adverse effects on health. In a controlled study regarding collect students, medial social addiction revealed a correlation with mental health issues and low self-esteem (Hou, Xiong, Jiang, Song & Wang, 2019). They report that social media addiction causes a reverse mediating effect of self-esteem, which has an adverse mental health effect. Their work agrees with early studies of Olino et al. (2012) that social media causes depression through response theory.

Griffiths, Kuss & Demetrovics (2014) depict addiction to SNSs as a clinical health issue that requires treatment. Therefore, medial social addiction is among the factors that decrease the health status of a society. Notably, the addiction is associated with psychological illnesses, and quality study should report the prognosis of the addiction (Griffiths, Lopez-Fernandez, Throuvala, Pontes & Kuss, 2018).

Relation to other addiction

Social medial addiction has the same effects as other traditional addictions.  For instance, a minority of the SNSs adducts, the screen time is the single most important aspect of their life. According to Griffiths, Lopez-Fernandez, Throuvala, Pontes & Kuss (2018), such behaviors are symptoms of traditional addictions, such as gambling addiction. Victims are preoccupied and become dependent on the SNS for socialization and updates or to satisfy their fear.

Since there are no empirical records for methods to treat social media addiction, society has at the risk of impacts of increased addicts. Such impacts include poor leadership, low productivity at workplaces, toxic social relationships, poor societal health status, among others. Hence, social media addiction is related to traditional addictions.

To sum up, Excessive use of social media leads to addictions mostly to teenagers since they are unable to self-control. The addiction affects a victim’s health and relationships negatively, like traditional addictions. Studies have shown that addiction causes clinical and psychological illness and results in poor or toxic social relationships. It is related to traditional addictions such as drug addiction and gambling

References

Abbasi, I. (2019). Social media addiction in romantic relationships: Does user’s age influence vulnerability to social media infidelity? Personality And Individual Differences, 139, 277-280. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2018.10.038

Griffiths, M., & Kuss, D. (2017). Adolescent social media addiction (revisited). Education And Health Journal, 35(3).

Griffiths, M., Kuss, D., & Demetrovics, Z. (2014). Social Networking Addiction. Behavioral Addictions, 119-141. doi: 10.1016/b978-0-12-407724-9.00006-9

Griffiths, M., Lopez-Fernandez, O., Throuvala, M., Pontes, H., & Kuss, D. (2018). Excessive and problematic use of social media in adolescence: A brief overview. International Gaming Research Unit. doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11280.71682

Hou, Y., Xiong, D., Jiang, T., Song, L., & Wang, Q. (2019). Social media addiction: Its impact, mediation, and intervention. Cyberpsychology: Journal Of Psychosocial Research On Cyberspace, 13(1). doi: 10.5817/cp2019-1-4

Olino, T., Yu, L., Klein, D., Rohde, P., Seeley, J., Pilkonis, P., & Lewinsohn, P. (2012). Measuring depression using item response theory: an examination of three measures of depressive symptomatology. International Journal Of Methods In Psychiatric Research, 21(1), 76-85. doi: 10.1002/mpr.1348

Zendle, D., & Bowden-Jones, H. (2019). Is excessive use of social media an addiction?. BMJ, l2171. doi: 10.1136/bmj.l2171