Are you constantly scrolling through social media? You might just be doing it out of habit, not addiction.
This is based on research conducted on 1,204 American adults, which found that excessive social media use was not associated with addiction-related symptoms such as cravings, withdrawal symptoms, and continued use despite negative consequences.
But psychologists stressed that social media is linked to negative outcomes such as poor body image, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem.
“For something to be considered an addiction, it has to interfere with the functioning of our daily lives,” said Dr. Audrey Tang, a licensed psychologist. Independent.
However, if we engage in normal behaviors such as checking our phone, responding to notifications immediately, or having notifications on at all, we are less likely to see these behaviors as harm.
Ian Anderson of the California Institute of Technology and Wendy Wood of the University of Southern California surveyed 380 American Instagram users, half of whom were women, with an average age of 44.
Participants described how addicted they were to Instagram and were assessed for symptoms of addictive use.
This study is published in the journal Scientific reportsfound that although 18 percent of participants at least somewhat agreed that they were addicted to Instagram — with 5 percent strongly agreeing — only 2 percent showed signs of addiction.
The researchers then analyzed the language used in US news and media between November 2021 and November 2024. They identified 4,383 articles that mentioned the term “social media addiction” and 50 articles about the term “social media habit.” This suggests that frequent social media use is often described as addictive, which they argue affects how users perceive their social media use.
A second sample of 824 American adult Instagram users was asked to describe their use of social media as an addiction. They found that participants associated their use with feeling less in control of Instagram use and attributed higher levels of blame to both themselves and the platform for their excessive use. The authors of the study suggest that we should use the word addiction selectively in relation to social media.
Despite this, recent data shows that social media addiction is on the rise, with almost half (48%) of teenagers in the UK saying they feel addicted to social media.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) found a sharp increase in problematic social media use among 280,000 young people in Canada, Central Asia and Europe.
Reflecting on the example of a child waking up in the middle of the night to use social media, Dr. Tang suggested that these habits should be called addictions because “it’s not a healthy behavior.”
Dr David Harley, an official member of the British Psychological Society and co-chair of its cyber psychology section, argued that a “habit” could still be harmful, particularly “unconscious habits”.
He suggested that calling excessive social media use an addiction shifts the blame onto the individual, claiming that social media companies design these programs to “monetize your attention.”
“These habits are reinforced by technologies, so they’re not just naturally occurring habits, they’re conditioned habits,” he said. Independent.
Meta has been contacted for comment.
