Social Media Addiction

Addiction doesn’t only come from drugs and cigarettes, but also social media. When teens start using social media too much it can get as addictive as drugs and cigarettes.This is disturbing because of past studies drugs and cigarettes are one of the hardest things to give up, once you start. “Teens who get hooked on such forms of social media find it hard to spend too much time away from them.Their schoolwork can suffer as a result. So can their personal relationships and their moods,” states Source 1. One can see from this that social media has caused stress among teens by getting them to attach to their social media profiles that they lose touch with reality.

Addictions may seem like simple pleasures at first. Unfortunately, that's the trap with any addiction. It starts out at a pleasurable interest. Gradually, it can turn into something that's life-altering and all-consuming. Not only can it alter your own life, it can ruin your family life. When it comes to addiction, most people think about the most popular ones like drug and alcohol addictions. However, there are many addictions that fly under the radar.

Social media is used widely by many across the nation, it is very prevalent in the lives of today’s college student and young adults to connect with friends attending different institutions or even friends sitting just across the room. In a generation where technology is so heavily relied on and even addicting to some, we have seen an increase of addictive behaviors. Does the overuse of technology contribute to the rising alcohol and drug addictions as well as mental health issues? In this paper I will discuss addiction and it’s prevalence in the U.S.  I will also discuss the use of social media in both teens and adults and the effects it has on the use of alcohol and drugs.

The article “Students Addicted to Social Media” touches base on how students are addicted to the media. A study asked 200 students to be without their phone for 24 hours and the results weren't all that shocking. They responded with jitters and felt miserable just like a person with an addiction to drugs would respond. A student admit he was addicted to his phone and found it sickening, because it had turned into something he needed to have everyday. A student also wrote that “they felt lonely and excluded”, being able to talk to their friends and be on the media apparently gave him comfort somehow. What was intriguing was that students didn't talk to their friends at all, because they didn't have access to their phones. The 18-21 year olds said, “ Their lack of access to text messaging, phone calling, instant messaging, email and facebook meant that they couldn't connect with friends who lived close by, much less those far away”. (404) It is not necessarily the media the students missed, it's the people they text message with everyday and the people they keep up with on social media. It's like they have a bond and they’re tied together. Technology has changed the way humans interact. Instead of having a full conversations in person, teenagers are text messaging each other to communicate with one another. As teenagers we go to school everyday with thousands of people, giving infinite opportunities to interact with others, but students feel the need to stay in touch with

Many students are addicted to social media. According to the article, “College Students ‘Addicted’ to Social Media, study Finds,” the students were “addicted” to the social ties- friendship and relationships- with other(Nauert). Students have become so addicted to social media that it is arduous for them to live without it. In fact, “students describe their feelings when they have to abstain from using media in literally the same terms associated with drug and alcohol addictions: in withdrawal, frantically craving, very anxious, extremely antsy, miserable, jittery, and crazy” (Nauret). Students get so much involve in social media that they forget almost everything else. According to the researchers, “The risk, they say, is that developing brains can become more easily habituated than adult brains to constantly switching tasks — and less able to sustain attention” (Richtel). Young students are more likely to become an addicted very quickly. Many students get most of their information via social media because they are constantly using social media in their daily life. For instance, “For most of the students reporting in the study, information of all kinds comes in an undifferentiated wave to them via social media. If a bit of

The most genuine complication of social media is addiction. A reporter on Salem health characterized that text messaging is no longer the biggest teenage obsession, and enormous phone bills from lengthy phone calls are no longer the biggest doubts for parents. These teenage addictions still remain, but in our generation and in analogy to the Facebook mania, it’s quite insignificant. Facebook addiction is advised to be a disorder driven by a craving. Not being able to access Facebook creates anxiety among fanatics. It is one of the most prominent social networking sites and has over one billion users without exception. People detach themselves from family and friends. Further symptoms of Facebook addiction have been related with needy sleep patterns. Researchers have also attempted to evaluate certain personality traits to the obsession. Being in touch with friends and family might clarify the logic why people are unreasonably obsessed.

In today’s society almost every individual has some type of social media, whether it is Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, or Twitter, People have accustomed to utilizing these types of social media and it has become part of their life and daily use. According to the essay “Students Addicted to Social Media” by the International Center for Media and Public Agenda, the study from the University of Maryland claims “American college students today are addicted to media” (Signs of Life in the USA 403). The university discovered that when these students are restricted from using media it is similar in terms of drug and alcohol addictions. During the study that the university conducted, students discuss how boring it is without media and how it gives them anxiety about not receiving information through social media. Other students claimed that texting and IM'ing gives them comfort and if they do not have these items then they feel alone and isolated from the world ( Signs of Life in the USA 404). Students are not the only ones who have an addiction of media but also parents and non-students. However, the International Center is accurate in some aspects and the responses students gave are very relatable which some people can agree with.

Teen may have been outgoing and fun-loving child, but of late whenever they are seen, he/she are on his/her computer, tablets, and smartphones tapping away at the keyboard. If a teen spends more time on various social media sites than he/she does with real people in real environments, he/she is probably addicted to social media. A teen from Nashville confesses, “He found that he’d login at night, stay on the site until two o’clock in the morning, and then be frustrated with himself for not getting any sleep” (77 Boyd). He felt addicted, he decided to ask his friend to join him in deactivating their profiles, they deactivated their profiles within minutes of each other on the same computer. These teen showed willpower, the decided to take their lives back. “In the United States, media coverage frequently portrays American youth in dark bedrooms with only the glow of the screen illuminating their faces, implying that there’s a generation of zombified social media addicts who are unable to tear themselves away from the stream of content from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram” (78 Boyd) Many teenagers develop an unhealthy relationship with technology, for some the addiction to social media, affects their school work and personal relationship with their family. Although, some may argue, “Most teens aren’t addicted to social media; if anything, they’re addicted to each other” (80 Boyd). Although this may be a valid point, teenagers are still choosing social media instead of picking

One way social media affect society is that people have become addicted to it. Having a social media account is very common in today's society. It can go from just having one social media account to having multiple. People have use these accounts as a way of communicating with people or showing others what they are doing with their lives. Even though this is what social media is mainly for people have become addicted to them. A review study from Nottingham Trent University looked back over earlier research on the psychological characteristics, personality and social media use. The authors conclude that “it may be plausible to speak specifically of ‘Facebook Addiction Disorder’…because addiction criteria, such as

Caroline Knorr, a journalist from CNN Common Sense Media asserts the fact that companies engineer the social media apps we utilize in a certain way that keeps us hooked (“How to resist technology”) on it in order to continue usage. Although these tactics benefit the companies that create the media apps it does not always positively affect the user. Addiction can be seen as an action that has been done multiple times to the point of creating a regular practice or habit in which the person becomes a slave to. In this case though, the base of the addiction is Social Media, what leads to it, and how one can end or prevent it. Ultimately, a habit like such can negatively impact a user to where it alters their social and everyday life. Luckily, there are methods that can help such as reorganizing the way a person uses their phone, also by modifying their actions and activities in order to increase the amount of time one can spend away from their device, as well as changing their decision making for in-app purchases.. On the other hand, there are possible refutations when bringing up the issue of social media.

Did you know the average person will spend five years and four months of their life devoted to using social media? This is more than the time we spend eating throughout our lives, which clocks in at about three years and five months, according to Mediakix, an influencer marketing service. The unstoppable march that is the advancement of technology is so quick that it’s only a matter of time before it consumes every aspect of the average life. Some might argue that social media usage is at an appropriate level and doesn’t need to be limited, but I disagree. For example, think about how many people are unable to put down their smartphone for ten minutes because, in a very literal sense, electronics have become an addiction. With this information in mind, there should be a policy enforced to limit the use of social media day by day. The government needs to enforce a law that permits only two hours of social media usage each day. This regulation is necessary because social media use is taking over the lives of modern humans, which could be put to use doing more useful activities to improve the world. This excessively large amount of time devoted to the usage of social media can, believe it or not, affect daily behavior and cause addictions. This limitation will allow us to become more effective and productive in the currently hindered work we are doing in our daily lives. The government should limit the amount of time people can use social media because it will result in

While social media has become the prominent communication medium of the day, as a society we have commonly avoided the fact that social media is as addictive as any substance in existence. Even though it is now know that social media is addictive, proven by The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale(BFAS), we have yet to come to a conclusion of just what constitutes social media addiction. The need for such a tool to diagnose a possible addiction to Facebook is the

Our lives seem to be more and more consumed by technology as great advances in this area have continue to be made, especially when it comes to social media. Many researchers have begun to notice that depending on how much time individuals spend on these social media sites, they can negatively affect their daily lifestyle in very significant ways.  For example, social networking has become a huge distraction for students and it can affect their grades depending on how often they check their various accounts while doing class work.  Researchers have also come to find out that social media can contribute to the development of psychological symptoms

Being addicted to social media is someone who spends too much time on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites, which interferes with their daily lives. When a person is continuously on social media it becomes an addiction, which causes them to loose focus of the importance around them (meaning their everyday lives.) When social media takes over a person life they start to seek it for social validation, fear of missing out, and finesse. Although some people use social media to stay in contact with family and close friends, many use it showing off like they've got it all together, leaving me to wonder the intentions of their post.

There is not a clear stated definition of digital addiction however Shaw and Black (2008) characterize Internet addiction by excessive or poorly preoccupations, urges or behaviours regarding computer use and internet access that lead to impairment or distress. However as the term addict is a strong description DA is seen as a general misuse of the internet in various forms, as no formal definition exists the author sees the disorder as problematic computer usage resulting in negative consequences. According to Young et al DA is a broad term covering a wide variety of behaviours and impulse control problems. K.Young (1999) also categorised DA into five subtypes of DA, they are cybersexual addiction, cyberrelationship addiction; net compulsion (e.g. gambling or shopping on the internet); information overload (e.g. compulsive database searching); and computer addiction (excessive game-playing). This project highlights social network addiction which falls into the category of cyberrelationship addiction but also contemplates all other types.