Session 2: Are you addicted to social media?

CCST 9076

Dr Shihui Feng
[email protected] CCST 9076
Unit of Human Communication, Development and
Information Sciences
Faculty of Education
University of Hong Kong
Last Week

● Evolution of social media

● Six-degree separation
● Features of Social Media
○ Differences among different social media platforms
○ User-generated content
○ Digital profile, network transparency, relational ties, search and privacy
● Uses and gratification theory (UGT)
Session 2-Outline

● The “addiction” paradox

○ Get to know addiction
○ Reward pathway in the brain
● What is social media addiction?
○ Definitions
○ Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS)
○ Social media platforms: needs & addiction
● Dual System Theory
 Learning Outcomes

Understand Recognize Analyze Develop

the underlying The characteristics of Different behavioural patterns in Awareness of social
mechanisms of addiction social media addiction and possible stimulus of different media addiction
social media platforms
Get to Know ”Addiction”
Get to Know “Addiction”

● “An overwhelming involvement with any pursuit whatsoever that is harmful to

the addicted person and his or her society” (Alexander, 2008)
● Substance or behavioral dependence
● “Behaviours performed with little or no control and having detrimental
consequences” (Starcevic, 2012)
● Compulsive behavior: continually repeat behaviors that we are trying not to
repeat
Reward Pathway in the Brain

Pleasure stimulus Dopamine, produced in the ventral tegmental area (VTA)

Dopamine is transmitted to the other parts of the brain which

have dopamine receptors

Emotions, Body motor functions, attention & planning,

Formation of memories
Reward Pathway in the Brain

Pleasure stimulus Dopamine, produced in the ventral tegmental area (VTA)

Dopamine is transmitted to the other parts of the brain which

have dopamine receptors
Continued pleasure

Emotions: ”I am feeling so happy” (reward)

Formation of memories: “let’s remember this experience”
Motor functions: “let’s do this again”
Attention & planning: “let’s focus on this”
Reward Pathway in the Brain

● Different stimuli activate the reward pathway to different degrees

● A biologically driven process
● The “paradox”
“relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain”
Criteria for behavioral
addiction
(Brown, 1993; Griffiths, 1996)
 Social Media & Addiction

“Phubbing”
Social Media Addiction

“Social Media addiction can be viewed as one form of Internet addiction, where
individuals exhibit a compulsion to use social media to excess” (Griffiths, 2000;
Starcevic, 2013).
Social Media Addiction

“Social Media addiction can be viewed as one form of Internet addiction, where individuals
exhibit a compulsion to use social media to excess” (Griffiths, 2000; Starcevic, 2013).
● overly concerned about social media

● uncontrollable urge to log on to and use social media

● Occuring over a long period of time

● Undergoes a psychological process
(Andreassen & Pallesen, 2014; Zhang et al., 2019 )
Are you Addicted to Social Media?

● It is shown that college students are more likely to become addicted as the intensity of
social media use increases (Błachnio et al., 2016; Brailovskaia et al., 2018, Busalim et
al., 2019).

● Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS), consists of six items: 1. Salience 2.
Mood modification 3. Tolerance, 4. Withdrawal symptoms, 5. Conflict ( functional
impairment) and 6. Relapse (loss of control).
 Are You Addicted to
Social Media?

Step 1
https://blocksurvey.io/calculator/bergen-
social-media-addiction-scale

Step 2
Submit your result
enter code: 5153 4999
https://www.menti.com/alr5zey5k8bw
Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale

1. You spend a lot of time thinking about social media or planning how to use it.
2. You feel an urge to use social media more and more.
3. You use social media in order to forget about personal problems.
4. You have tried to cut down on the use of social media without success.
5. You become restless or troubled if you are prohibited from using social media.
6. You use social media so much that it has had a negative impact on your job/studies.
Red Flags:

● “Spending the majority of your time engaging in the behavior, thinking about or arranging to engage in the
behavior, or recovering from the effects”
● “Becoming dependent on the behavior as a way to cope with emotions and to "feel normal””
● “Continuing despite physical and/or mental harm”
● “Having trouble cutting back despite wanting to stop”
● “Neglecting work, school, or family to engage in the behavior more often”
● “Experiencing symptoms of withdrawal (for example, depression or irritability) when trying to stop”
● “Minimizing or hiding the extent of the problem”

(Alavi et al., 2012)

source: https://www.verywellmind.com/addictive-behaviors-4157291#citation-2
“the habits that have gotten out of control”

● “habitual media use involves repeated use of a medium or platform, motivations that cause, or in
the past led to repeated use, and some feelings of inability to limit usage” (Vishwanath, 2015)

● consumption frequency, gratifications, and automaticity

● ” adolescents who, on average, used social media more automatically than their peers also
reported more task delay than their peers (between-person)” (Meier et al., 2023)

● context dependent
Dual System Theory

● Reflective system
○ slower, deliberate, conscious, effortful
○ cognitive evaluation of the current situation to inform desired behavioral
○ Outcome <—> Response
Keith Stanovich
● Reflexive system
○ fast, impulsive, intuitive, reactive, automatic
○ “combines affective and cognitive impulses to prompt an instantaneous
behavioral response” (Strack & Deutsch, 2004; Turel et al., 2011)
○ Stimulus —> Response

Daniel Kahneman
Dual System Theory & Social Media Addiction

● Which type of thinking system is associated with the manifestation of habits in SNS?
○ Fast, and activated automatically, response to relevant cues
○ habitual tendency to respond to the stimuli
○ less attention to the conditions surrounding the response behavior
Dual System Theory & Social Media Addiction

● “the reflective system will trigger the need to consider the appropriateness of responding to the
stimuli (or exhibiting the habitual behavior) and act accordingly in favor of the higher order goal
(e.g., to succeed in school in case of messages received during class time). “ (Turel et al., 2011 )

● The development of social media addiction symptom is associated with users' inability to control
their automatic impulsion to use those systems (Turel & Qahri-Saremi, 2016)
Dual System Theory & Social Media Addiction

● Goal-directed control
○ Outcome <—> Response
○ Sensitive to the contingency degradation or outcome devaluation

● Habit
○ Stimulus —> Response
○ The response could persist even if the outcome is undesired

● Habits can be embedded in sequences of goal-directed actions (Dezfouli & Balleine, 2012)
Instant Gratification
● the desire to experience pleasure or fulfillment
without delay or deferment

● Short-term rewards VS long-term rewards

● Impulsive choices or preferences for short-

term rewards result from the emotion-related
parts of the brain winning out over the
abstract-reasoning parts.

● The dopamine-related brain areas dominated

short-term choices among the study subjects
Social media addiction & Brain

● “technology-related “addictions” share some neural features with substance and gambling
addictions, but more importantly they also differ from such addictions in their brain etiology and
possibly pathogenesis, as related to abnormal functioning of the inhibitory-control brain system”
(Turel et al., 2014)

● “While the activation of the amygdala-striatal (impulsive) brain system was positively associated
with one's Facebook “addiction” score (i.e., the level of addiction-like symptoms presented), there
was no association between this score and activation of the prefrontal cortex (inhibition) brain
system” (Turel et al., 2014)
Social media addiction & Brain

● “social media checking behaviors in early adolescence may be associated with changes in the
brain’s sensitivity to social rewards and punishments” (Maza, et al., 2023)
● “We found that 12-year-old adolescents showed different neural patterns based on their
socialmedia checking behavior. While participants with habitual checking behaviors
demonstrated hypoactivation of the amygdala, PI, VS, and DLPFC in response to anticipation of
social feedback, those with nonhabitual behaviors demonstrated hyperactivation in these same
brain regions. Interestingly, these patterns diverged across development, with those with
habitual behaviors showing longitudinal increases in activation in these regions and those with
nonhabitual behaviors showing longitudinal decreases in activation”. (Maza, et al., 2023)
Limitations of Existing Studies

Andrew Przybylski (2019), a senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, argued that most
existing studies on social media's effects are…

1. Too small to carry a lot of statistical power;

2. Examples of “correlation, not causation”;
3. A result of confirmation bias.
As UNICEF points out that claims that the brain is affected by technology needs to be examined more
carefully and further investigated. Some criticize the notion of “social media addiction” as an example
of “overpathologizing”.
Why is social media addictive?
The following sessions….
References
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Alabi, O. F. (2012). A survey of Facebook addiction level among selected Nigerian University undergraduates. New Media and Mass Communication, 10, 70–80.
Alavi SS, Ferdosi M, Jannatifard F, Eslami M, Alaghemandan H, Setare M. (2012) Behavioral addiction versus substance addiction: Correspondence of psychiatric and psychological
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Andreassen, C. S., & Pallesen, S. (2014). Social network site addiction-an overview. Current pharmaceutical design, 20(25), 4053-4061.
Alexander, BK. (2008). The Globalisation of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit. New York: Oxford University Press.
Brailovskaia, J., Schillack, H., & Margraf, J. (2018). Facebook addiction disorder in Germany. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 21(7), 450–456.
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Busalim, A. H., Masrom, M., & Zakaria, W. N. B. W. (2019). The impact of facebook addiction and self-esteem on students’ academic performance: A multi-group analysis. Computers
& Education, 142, 103651.
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Chen, C., Zhang, K. Z., Gong, X., Zhao, S. J., Lee, M. K., & Liang, L. (2017). Examining the effects of motives and gender differences on smartphone addiction. Computers in Human
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Griffiths, M. (1996). Behavioural addiction: an issue for everybody?. Employee Councelling Today, 8(3), 19-25.
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Hou, Y., Xiong, D., Jiang, T., Song, L., & Wang, Q. (2019). Social media addiction: Its impact, mediation, and intervention. Cyberpsychology, 13(1), Cyberpsychology, 2019, Vol.13 (1).
Jeong, E. J., Kim, D. J., & Lee, D. M. (2017). Why do some people become addicted to digital games more easily? A study of digital game addiction from a psychosocial health
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References
Maza, M. T., Fox, K. A., Kwon, S. J., Flannery, J. E., Lindquist, K. A., Prinstein, M. J., & Telzer, E. H. (2023). Association of habitual checking behaviors on social
media with longitudinal functional brain development. JAMA pediatrics, 177(2), 160-167.
Meier, A., Beyens, I., Siebers, T., Pouwels, J. L., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2023). Habitual social media and smartphone use are linked to task delay for some, but not all,
adolescents. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 28(3), zmad008.
Orben, A., Dienlin, T., & Przybylski, A. K. (2019). Social media’s enduring effect on adolescent life satisfaction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(21), 10226-
10228.
Statista. (2021). Most Popular Social Networks Worldwide as of October 2021, Ranked by number of Active Users. Retrieved from:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
Starcevic, V. (2013). Is Internet addiction a useful concept?. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 47(1), 16-19.
Tanta, I., Mihovilović, M., & Sablić, Z. (2014). Uses and gratification theory–why adolescents use Facebook?. Medijska istraživanja: znanstveno-stručni časopis za novinarstvo i medije,
20(2), 85-111.
Turel, O., He, Q., Xue, G., Xiao, L., & Bechara, A. (2014). Examination of neural systems sub-serving Facebook “addiction”. Psychological reports, 115(3), 675-695
Vishwanath, A. (2015). Habitual Facebook use and its impact on getting deceived on social media. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 20(1), 83-98.
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CCST 9076 Attention Magnet: The Psychological and
Technological Aspects of Social Media Addiction
Session 2