Case study

Running Head: Social Media Addiction

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Social Media Addiction

Richard Murphy

7/13/16

CMST 4899: Senior Project


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Abstract

Internet addiction is when an individual becomes addicted to new internet and mobile

technologies. This study was conducted to show the effects of everyday social media use and

how it can lead to social media addiction. The study focuses on how parenting styles negatively

or positively influence social media addiction, how the individuals use social media habitually,

and the consequences that occur from social media use in the individuals’ lives. Many of studies

have shown that social media usage can lead to addiction that can have negative results on the

individuals’ lives.

Keywords: Social Media Addiction, Internet Addiction, Habitual Use, Parenting Styles,

Introduction

Social media has become a very prevalent part of individuals’ lives; Twitter itself has so

many active users that if it were its own country it would be the 12th

most populated country in

the world. Social media networks were created as a way to connect and have fun; it is not

something that people think of as a negative. In reality social media has become very addicting

to some people, and since it is not and actual substance that you can consume most people do not

even view it as something that can become addicting. What people are not always aware of is

that you can actually become addicted to any particular substance, thing, or activity. This

phenomenon has slowly but surely became a problem in individuals’ lives all over the world,

especially in America. It is important that we conduct more studies in the future covering the

negative effects of social media addiction because it is relatively new and rapidly growing. The

more studies that are conducted the more information will be discovered about the negative


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effects of social media and more awareness can be raised to help prevent social media addiction.

This paper will cover how parenting styles effect social media addiction amongst adolescents,

habitual use of social media, and the consequences in users personal, professional lives come

along with social media use.

Literature Review

Parenting Styles

Parenting styles can play a factor into adolescents’ chances of becoming addicted to

social media (Wasinski & Tomczyk, 2015). Parenting styles play a very important part in

children’s lives when it comes to growing up. It plays just as important part when it comes to

adolescents’ social media usage. Wasinski and Tomcyk discuss in their paper “Factors Reducing

the Risk of Internet Addiction in Young People in their Home Enviorment” how different

parenting styles changed the possibilities of these adolescents becoming addicted to social

media. There were three different types of parenting styles that were looked at in these studies,

active mediation, restrictive mediation, and co viewing. Active mediation is when parents have

talks with their children about television or the internet and the risks that come along with them.

Restrictive mediation is when parents only let their children on certain sites and they are only

allowed to use the internet at certain times a day. The last is co viewing; this is when the parents

talk to the kids about the content while viewing it with them. Family environment has also been

viewed to be a factor in whether or not children more likely to become addicted to social media

addiction.

Parenting styles have shown that they can help children become less likely to be addicted

to social media. Wasinski and Tomczyk have shown that how parents talk to their kids about


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social media had less of an effect on the children then when they limited the time that the

children were allowed to use social media sites. However when parents did discuss the dangers

of the internet and social media, their children were more aware of the risks and less likely to be

exposed to those dangerous risks. Lowering the amount of time that they were allowed to spend

on the internet did have a positive correlation to if they would become addicted or not. Some

parents even block content to protect their children from viewing it, this stopped them from risks,

it has even stopped them from spending as much time on the internet if one of the sites that is

blocked happens to be one of the ones that they would spend an extended period of time on. Co

viewing proved to be the least effective of the three that were studied. Co viewing is where the

parents would sit and watch the shows or view the internet content with the adolescents. This

proved to be less effective since the children were still viewing it. Parenting styles have also

shown to lower the chances of children being exposed to internet harassment and other risks that

come along with social media use. Leung, Louis, Lee, and Paul (2012) show in their findings that

the stricter the parent is, the less time the child will spend interacting on social media sites.

Family environment has also played a part in if a child is more likely to become addicted or not.

A positive family environment is shown to lower the chance of an adolescent to become addicted

to social media. These studies showed that the most effective parenting style was when the

parents were stricter. Their children were the ones who were not only less likely to become

addicted to the content but were also less likely to be exposed to internet risks as well.

Habitual Use and Addiction from Social Media

Parenting styles can help prevent an adolescent from becoming addicted to social media,

but not everyone can avoid social media addiction. Some individuals over time become habitual


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users on social media sites. These individuals use the content repeatedly or routinely to view the

content or to interact with other individuals because of the gratifications that come from social

media usage. These individuals will the social media platforms often to check to see what other

users are posting, and over time the user will begin to do this more and more when they begin to

gain more gratifications from the content. The more that they use this content over time the

bigger distraction it becomes in their lives. Users do not usually realize how much they are using

the content because of how it becomes such a large part of their lives. It will also being to take

up more and more time in their lives as they continue to use it more throughout their day. A lot

of these individuals will often become more and more comfortable with their online lives than

their real ones. Over time these same individuals will begin to have negative effects when away

from social media.

There are many factors that lead to individuals becoming addicted to social media sites.

One thing that individuals who are addicted to social media sites experience is that they actually

feel more confident communicating with individuals online than in person (Leung et al. 2012).

These individuals often believe that they are being treated better by the people they are

communicating with online more than the individuals that they communicate with on a daily

basis in person. People who become addicted to social media often have many of the same side

effects as individuals who are addicted to a substance. Most individuals’ think that addiction is

only caused by substance abuse, so what happens when they begin to get addicted to social

media sites they often ignore the signs because they are unaware that they can even become

addicted. Once they become addicted to social media the addicted individuals feel like they need

to use the internet more and more to gain satisfaction, and when they are away from their devices

they can feel restless, irritable, depressed and like something is missing. These are all similar to


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individuals who are addicted to some form of drugs. They also become preoccupied with social

media and often spend a lot of their time on the sites. They usually become so involved with the

content that they lose track of time as well as spend more time on the sites than they had

originally planned. People now are using social media the same was some individuals use drugs.

Sites like Twitter and Facebook are being used as a way for people to escape when they are

feeling down and as a way for individuals to escape and talk to other individuals when they are

feeling lonely or sad. The more that these individuals use social media the more skilled they will

become with the content that they are using. This makes social media use much more fun for the

users, but unfortunately it also increases their chances of becoming addicted. The more fun these

sites are the easier it is for individuals to use it habitually and lose track of how much time they

are actually spending on the sites. When individuals use social media sites like Facebook for

multiple different uses, they were more likely to use the site habitually than someone who only

checks the site when they have updates. All different types of individuals can become habitual

users. Studies have shown the more “popular” people who have a large amount of friends or

followers are also more likely to become habitual users. These individuals feel more wanted on

these sites and it also gives them more opportunities to view more status updates and

communicate with more people so they are less likely to become bored since they have more to

do on the site. These same studies also showed that individuals who lacked confidence in

themselves in person during their everyday lives also felt much more confident when on the

internet, and they were also more likely to become habitual users. These individuals who have

become addicted social media sites found communicating online with other individuals was more

comfortable than communicating in person.

Consequences – Personal, Professional,


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It has been shown that people use social media habitually and way too much, but what

kind of consequences can come in individuals lives from them using social media this much? It

is very well known that social media has become very distracting to individuals; especially with

how easy it is to get on social media sites with smart phones. Social media sites were made so

that individuals could interact and reconnect with others. But over time it has proven to be more

of a distraction for some individuals. In 2015 Brooks did a study called “Does Personal Social

Media Usage Affect Efficiency and Well-Being?”. This study shows that social media usage can

result in negative performance at work. There have been studies that have shown that individuals

lose track of time when they are on social media sites (Brooks, 2015). In this case when the users

have the ability to only use it for short periods of time or even multitask, it has still been shown

to have negative results compared to if they did not spend any time on the site. Social media

networks have been shown to have negative effects on individuals who think they are very good

at multitasking; these results prove that people are often not as good at multitasking as they

think. It also showed that anytime spent on social media networks in a work environment is

going to hurt work performance.

Social media can very easily become distracting for peoples’ lives. Social media can

cause a number of negative life consequences. Studies have shown that social media usage can

be detrimental to the user’s personal and professional lives (Brooks, 2015). Individuals who use

social media can often become very distracted at work because they spend so much time on their

phones or computers; this also has a negative effect on their work performances, every minute

that these individuals are on the social media platforms they are losing time on the work that they

could be doing instead. It has even become so bad for some users that social media usage has

even led to them missing work, class, social events. People who use social media sites also have


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shown that these individuals have higher levels of technology stress. People become so involved

in the content that what they read and come across has an effect on them. People also use these

sites as ways of finding out news so this can also contribute to techno stress, but most of the

stress is caused from what is viewed from other individuals’ posts. This was an interesting

finding because of how sites like Facebook were created for entertainment and not to cause extra

stress and negatively impact work performance.

Narrative

Over the past ten years social media has become part of Americans everyday lives. Social

media networks were created for entertainment, connecting with people and enhancing your

social life. It has recently become a topic of discussion on whether social media can be addicting

or not. Michael Robb recently wrote a blog called “What Parents Need to Know about

Technology Addiction”. In this article he talks about how up to nine hours a day can be spent on

social media sites by teenagers today (commonsensemedia.org). If a teenager spends this much

time on a social media site are they addicted? I would say so, for most non salary jobs anything

over 8 hours of work can be considered overtime and these teenagers are spending more time on

social media every day than most of their parents do daily at work making an honest living.

These individuals have taken what was created for entertainment and connecting with others and

using it habitually, and it is not just the children. Parents are using social media sites so much

that they also believe that they have become addicted to it themselves. Individuals are using

these media sites so much that they are having troubles staying away from it, and when they do

they even act differently if a way to long. They don’t even realize that they are using it

habitually, and it is even causing risks to their everyday lives. The more popular social media

sites became the bigger the problem they became. People use to only visit the web sites while


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using their computers. This became a distraction to the users when they were trying to do

anything online. But social media sites really became a distraction when they were able to be

used on mobile devices. This made it possible for people to become distracted and view the sites

whenever they wanted too. Now people are not just distracted at home when their computers are

in front of them, they can now be distracted by social media where ever they are, at anytime no

matter what it is that they are doing. This is not limited to only one group of individuals either.

Anyone who is signed up to any social media and has a smart phone or tablet can view the sites

whenever they please. Kids of all ages as well as parents have profiles on social media sites,

people often assume that kids are the only ones who use these sites too much, but parents also

use the sites so much that they have had a negative impact in their lives. Anyone who uses these

sites can be at risk of becoming addicted to social media. Social media use has lead to addiction,

as well as other negative impacts in the individuals’ lives. Michael Robb explains in his blog that

research has shown that both children and parents use social media too much and that it can be a

distraction and has negative impacts on their everyday lives. Although social media addiction is

relatively new and does not have all of the research that other addictions have, it still has enough

research conducted to prove the negative aspects that it has caused. Michael Robb explains that

half of teens and one fourth of parents feel they are addicted to social media. Parents and teens

both feel that the others get distracted and do not pay attention when trying to communicate. He

also found in his report that “Internet addiction is potentially serious”, and that “Media and

technology use is a source of friction for many families”.

Results

The way people use social media they have shown the same signs that people that use

drugs show, they have troubles staying away from the media, they also act differently when they


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are away from it. This study has shown that “Half of teen and over one quarter of parents feel

they are addicted to their mobile devices” (Commonsensemedia.org). Commonsensemedia.org

also reported that about half of parents and one third of teens try to cut down on the time that

they spent on their mobile devises. The fact that this many individuals can admit that they are

addicted to mobile uses is a sign that social media can be addicting as well. These individuals are

not just checking to see if they have text messages every hour, they also check their social media.

Addiction makes something difficult for individuals to stop using, it is usually a substance, but it

can be something else like social media. This study has helped prove that social media addiction

is real because of how these individuals studied tried to cut back. People do not just cut back on

things that are positive to their everyday lives. This shows that they are aware of their addiction

and that it is becoming a problem in their life.

Over time social media use becomes so normal to the user they often lose track of how

much time they really spend on it daily. The more and more individuals use social media the go

from using it occasionally to becoming habitual users. Commonsense.org has reported that “A

typical teen’s day includes up to nine hours of texting, gaming, watching videos, and posting on

multiple social media networks, even while doing home work”. It has also shown that 69% of

parents and 78% of teens check their devices hourly (commonsensemedia.org). This further

proves that social media can be used habitually. What makes these individuals checking their

devices so often a negative thing is that they check them no matter where they are at or what they

are doing. This has become a distraction to these individuals while they are at work or at school.

Over 70% of teen feel that they need to respond to social network messages and notifications

immediately (commonsensemedia.org). This is a contributing factor to these individuals using

social media hourly thus using it habitually.


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The use of social media has many of issues that come along with it but it also has been

known to cause problems in households as well. Commonsensemedia.org has reported that

internet addiction is potentially serious, it can cause daily arguments in families, and that

children feel that their parents check their devices to often. They also have found from their

studies that parents struggle to limit how often their children use social media. This study has

proven that social media can cause friction in households because of both children, and parents’

use of social media. Even though social media should be a fun way to connect with friends it

causes and argument on a daily basis in over 36% of households (commonsensemedia.org). It

further proves that social media like anything else needs to be used responsibly. The usage of it

can be negative towards individuals’ lives in many of different ways. Now even though it is

nowhere near a serious as drug abuse, using it too much and incorrectly can still cause problems

in your daily life.

Discussion

Michael Robb helped further prove that social media can be addicting with his blog about

technology addiction. It showed not only different ways that these individuals use social media

irresponsibly but it also had statistics to back it. What was discussed by Mr. Robb helped prove

further that social media can be addicting. It can affect individuals family lives, be distracting,

addicting and also used habitually. This study went deeper into parents’ use of social media and

technology itself. The others only worked on how adolescents miss use social media. Parenting

was part of most studies, and although this one didn’t cover different parenting styles. It showed

that parenting styles are not always the problem if parents themselves have a problem. Other

studies focused on how problems are caused by social media, but they never discussed family

problems caused by it. The previous studies only focused on work, school and personal lives like


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social events not family. It also showed more that teens do suffer from social media addiction,

and that they also use these sites habitually. Future studies need to expand out to parents, as well

as young children. If future studies focus on the parents it can show what kind of examples are

being set for the kids, and this can shed more light on why the adolescents use social media the

way that they do. Right now they focus more on the parenting styles instead of on the parents

themselves. Studying younger children can also be very beneficial to growing a better

understanding of social media addiction. The younger the kinds are that they chose to base their

study on may make it possible to find out where the addiction to social media initially begins.

This will also make it possible to find out why kids use social media in the first place, as well

how much is being used as a young child. Studying the younger kids may be what is needed to

further prevent social media addiction right from the beginning and give parents better ways as a

parent to prevent social media addiction. This study has shown that human communication has

grown in different ways. But it is also showing that social media and technology are hurting face

to face communication. Individuals are now more worried about their devices than they are about

paing attention to verbal cues and making eye contact during conversations. As good as social

media can be for meeting new people, it can be just as bad when I comes to communicating to

them. Individuals need to learn to balance the two better so that we do not miss out on face to

face communication. This article helped shed light that parents also have problems with social

media addiction. It shows that it is very distracting to them, and can be dangerous when they feel

the need to check their phones while driving. This study also showed that more studies on

parents social media usage need to be conducted.

Conclusion


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After all the studies that have been conducted it has been proven that social media can

become addicting. Although it is not a controlled substance it can still become addicting to

individuals. It can be a major distraction because of how individuals spend much more time on

them than intended. These sites have led to individuals missing out on school, work, and social

events. Many of individuals social life has become made up of the relationships they develop

online. Parenting styles have also shown to be very important when it comes to adolescents

becoming addicted to social media. Parents are not completely to blame if their children become

addicted to social media, but the way they are with their children can have a major effect on if

they become addicted or not.

RQ1. How dangerous to an individual’s professional and personal lives can social media

addiction be?

RQ2. How much does the parents’ usage of social media play a role in their children

using social media?

Importance and Limitations

These studies have become very important because of how much social media has

become a part in individuals’ everyday lives. Over the next few years it is important for them to

do more studies on social media since it is used by so many individuals compared to other sites.

It is rare to find something that is as applicable to so many different people as social media sites

are. The more studies that are done the easier it will be to prevent social media addiction, as well

as find out new ways to help individuals who are addicted to social media sites.


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There are limitations that can affect the results of the studies that have been discussed. It

is very hard to cover the large amount of people that use social media sites. These studies

discussed covered how it can cause negative impacts on individuals’ lives, especially in the work

place and in the class room. It has not covered all the different types of negative impacts it

causes to these individuals. They also have not been able to do studies on mobile usage of social

media sites. The usage has only been covered as a whole instead of splitting it up to mobile use

as well. These are some of the limitations that have hindered the results of studies and if they can

be examined it will help stop social media addiction.

References

Brooks, S. (2015). Does personal social media usage affect efficiency and well being?

Computers in Human Behavior, 46, 26-37

Leung, Louis, Lee, Paul S.N. (2012). The influences of information literacy, internet addiction

and parenting styles on internet risks. New Media & Society, 14, 117-136

Vishwanath A, (2015) habitual facebook use and its impact on getting deceived on social media.

Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 20(1), 83-98

Wang, C; Lee, M.K.O; Hua, Z. (2015). A theory of social media dependence: evidience from

microblog users. OhioLink Research Journals Electronic Journal Center. 69,40-49

Wasinski, A,; Tomczyk, L. (2015). Factors reducing the risk of internet addiction in young

people in their home enviorment. Children and Youth Services Review, 56. 68-74

What Parents Need to Know About Technology Addiction. Retrieved July 27, 2016, from

https;//www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/what-parents-need-to-know-about-technology-

addiction

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