CAN EXCESSIVE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA CONTRIBUTE

TO ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOURS OR MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES

ABSTRACT: Social Networking Sites (SNSs) are virtual communities where users can create individual public profiles, interact with real life friends, and meet other people based on shared interests.

They are seen as a ‘global consumer phenomenon’ with an exponential rise in usage within the last few years. Studies have proven that the excessive use or overuse of these SNSs create anxiety and lead to mood modification and other mental illnesses. Therefore, this research is

intended to provide empirical and conceptual insight into the emerging Phenomenon of addiction to SNSs by: (1) outlining SNS usage patterns, (2) examining factors for SNS usage, (3)

examining negative consequences of SNS usage, (4)Exploring potential SNS addiction, and (5) exploring SNS addiction to mental illnesses. The findings indicate that SNSs are predominantly used for social purposes, mostly related to the

maintenance of established offline networks. Moreover, extraverts appear to use social networking sites for social enhancement, whereas introverts use it for social compensation, each

of which appears to be related to greater usage, as does low conscientiousness and high narcissism. Negative correlates of SNS usage include the decrease in real life social community participation and academic achievement, as well as relationship problems, each of which may be

indicative of potential addiction.

Introduction:

Undoubtedly, the developing and changing world system that we are involved in influences

every aspect of our lives. Not only in political, economic, or cultural sense but also changes

especially in new technologies influence the psychology of people as well and the changes that it

brings is the most common subject of researches. Internet addiction and types of addiction that

emerged via the developing communication technologies, is one of the most burning issues.

Objectives of the research:

• Comparative study of positive and negative aspects of social media.

• Examining the factors that lead to SNSs usage.

• Identify and categorize addictiveness to social media.

• Reasons for people to get addicted.

• Effects of social media on mental health.

Scope:

• The study relates to the effect of negative aspects of social media’s contribution to the

human behaviour on the youth population of the Bangalore.

• The research tries to cover all the youth of Bangalore by using a stratified sampling to

determine the sample size out of sample world (Bangalore Youth).

Definition of the Terms used:

• SNS: Social networking is a global revolution, enabling around a billion people

worldwide to stay in touch with their friends, share experiences and photographs and

exchange personal content. In many ways it has replaced the telephone and email.

Include Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Whatsapp mainly for research.

• Social Media: Social media are computer-mediated tools that allow people to create,

share or exchange information, ideas, and pictures/videos in virtual communities and

networks.

• Addiction: It is a psychological feeling of dependence. It is a state of being enslaved to a habit to

such a state that its cessation causes serious trauma.

• Socialization: It is a general term for the many different ways and processes by which children

come to be able to function as members of their social community. It is in part a process of

learning and in part a process of being taught, but modern views of socialisation also stress the

active role of children in making sense of their social world, and constructing their own ways of

being part of their social group.

• Online Gambling: the act of gambling using internet mainly SNSs.It is the act of playing

for stakes in the hope of winning.

• Mental Illness: It is a hostile feeling in the mind where its further stage leads to serious

trauma to the person.

Assumptions:

• Everyone is connected to Social Media (mainly the youth).

From secondary sources of data, that almost 96% of the youth is connected atleast any

one of the social networking sites directly, and almost 89% of the youth are connected to

more than one SNS. It doesn’t mean that the remaining 4% are not at all connected to

SNSs.

• Overuse/Addiction of anything has ill effects.

It is known from the ages that every object has a positive and a negative effect on users.

The negative sides of the object comes to picture, when it is overused. Similarly, SNSs

provide a medium to connect and explore the world, which is its positive side and the

over usage of these sites may cause mental health and behavioural problems.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW:

The article ‘Is Generation Y Addicted to Social Media?’ by Jaclyn Cabral

examined Generation Y’s psychological addiction to social media with specific

regard to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn. The addiction was

interpreted using Griffiths’ six components that determine behavioral addiction:

salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict and relapse. The

purpose of this study was to determine if Generation Y was in fact addicted to

social media because of their need to maintain relationships with their peers. The

results indicated that this sample of Generation Y suffers from three components,

tolerance, salience and relapse. They also suffers from intrapsychic conflict, but

not interpersonal conflict

The second article reviewed “Social Networking Addiction: Emerging Themes and

Issues” by Mark D Griffiths focused mainly on the disadvantages of Social Media

including SNSs. Researchers have suggested that the excessive use of new

technologies (and especially online social networking) may be particularly

problematic to young people. It is claimed that those people addicted to using

SNSs experience symptoms similar to those experienced by individuals who suffer

from addictions to substances or other behaviours. This has significant implications

for clinical practice because unlike other addictions, the goal of SNS addiction

treatment cannot be total abstinence from using the internet per se it is an integral

element of today’s professional and leisure culture. This has significant

implications for clinical practice because unlike other addictions, the goal of SNS

addiction treatment cannot be total abstinence from using the internet per se it is an

integral element of today’s professional and leisure culture.

Ways Social Media Affects Our Mental Health

Social media is addictive.

Studies show that 63% of Americans log on to Facebook daily, and 40% log on multiple times

each day. People use the site for myriad reasons; however, it usually serves, on some level, the same basic purposes: distraction and boredom relief. “Likes” and comments are positive

reinforcement for posting information, making it difficult for a person to stop. Researchers have found this so common that they created a scale to measure this addiction: The Berge Facebook Addiction Scale.

Social media makes us compare our lives with others’.

Posts on social media many times present an idealized version of what’s happening, what something looks like, or how things are going. This can lead users to constantly compare

themselves to others and think less of their own lives. If things are going particularly well for people in your newsfeed and you’re having a rough day, of course this will likely negatively affect your mood. In fact, in 2012 a team of researchers in the UK surveyed users, 53% of whom

said social media had changed their behavior; 51% said it was negative behavior because of decline in confidence they felt due to unfair comparisons to others.

Social media makes us restless.

Out of the same sample as the above example, two-thirds admitted to having difficultly relaxing

when unable to use their social media accounts.

Social media gives rise to cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying is an enormous concern, especially for adolescents. An organization that aims for

internet safety, called Enough is Enough, conducted a survey that found 95% of teenagers who use social media have witnessed cyberbullying, and 33% have been victims themselves.

Social media glamorizes drug and alcohol use.

A study that explored the relationship between teenagers, social media, and drug use found that 70% of teenagers ages 12 to 17 use social media, and that those who interact with it on a daily

basis are five times more likely to use tobacco, three times more likely to use alcohol, and twice as likely to use marijuana. In addition, 40% admitted they had been exposed to pictures of people

under the influence via social media, suggesting correlation between the two factors. Although a correlation is all it is, it makes sense that social media would amp up the amount of peer pressure to which teenagers are exposed.

Social media can make us unhappy.

A study from the University of Michigan collected data about Facebook users and how it correlated with their moods. Simply put, they found that the more avid users were overall more unhappy than those who used the site less. Over more time, avid users also reported lower

satisfaction in their lives overall.

Assumptions:

• Everyone is connected to Social Media (mainly the youth).

From secondary sources of data, that almost 96% of the youth is connected atleast any

one of the social networking sites directly, and almost 89% of the youth are connected to

more than one SNS. It doesn’t mean that the remaining 4% are not at all connected to

SNSs.

• Overuse/Addiction of anything has ill effects.

It is known from the ages that every object has a positive and a negative effect on users.

The negative sides of the object comes to picture, when it is overused. Similarly, SNSs

provide a medium to connect and explore the world, which is its positive side and the

over usage of these sites may cause mental health and behavioural problems.

3. HYPOTHESIS

• Excessive use of social media creates anxiety.

H0: Excessive use of social media does not create anxiety.

H1: Excessive use of social media creates anxiety.

• Excessive use of social media is responsible for dual personality disorder.

H0: Excessive use of social media is not responsible for dual personality disorder.

H1: Excessive use of social media is responsible for dual personality disorder.

• Excessive use of social media results in social awkwardness.

H0: Excessive use of social media does not result in social awkwardness.

H1: Excessive use of social media results in social awkwardness.

• Excessive use of social media leads to unproductivity/ reduced productivity

H0: Excessive use of social media does not lead to unproductivity/ reduced productivity.

H1: Excessive use of social media leads to unproductivity/ reduced productivity.

4. METHODOLOGY:

• Descriptive Research: We found out the characteristics of youth that lead to excessive

use and factors that evolve due to excessive use.

a) Factors that lead to excessive use

i) Cognitive-behavioral model: This model emphasizes that ‘abnormal’ social networking arises

from maladaptive cognitions and is amplified by various environmental factors, and eventually

leads to compulsive and/or addictive social networking.

ii) Social-Skill model: This model emphasizes that ‘abnormal’ social networking arises because

people lack self-presentational skills and prefer virtual communication to face-to-face interactions,

and it eventually leads to compulsive and/or addictive use of social networking.

iii) Social – Cognitive model: This model emphasizes that ‘abnormal’ social networking arises

due to the expectation of positive outcomes, combined with internet self-efficacy and deficient internet self-regulation eventually leads to compulsive and/or addictive social networking behavior.

b) Factors that evolve due to excessive use

i) Mood modification: The behavior or the mood of people who got addicted to Social

media cannot be predicted. They may be angry while they are smiling.

ii) Tolerance: The addicted people cannot tolerate a small mistake that they see mainly

while using net. They are easily drawn into fight, though there is no reason for them to

fight.

iii) Withdrawal: When the addicted people are restricted to internet or when they reduce

usage, they feel withdrawal i.e., keep them away from others.

iv) Relapsing: They go to bad behavior and deteriorate in health.

v) Anxiety

vi) Depression

• EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH: It is conducted to know the correlation between the

factors that influence the users and the factors that evolve in them after the addiction. We

used the online questionnaire method to know the relation and followed the following

procedure.

a) Division of youth into strata or quotas based on gender and then age

b) Preparation of separate questionnaires

c) Setting up the survey questionnaire on SNS and mailing

d) Collection of data.

Result of the Experimental Research:

Cognitive-

Behaviour

Social-

Skill

Social-Cognitive

Mood

Modification

20

24

16

In-tolerance

17

30

29

Withdrawal

24

26

20

Anxiety

13

09

25

Depression

26

12

10

5. TOOLS USED FOR GATHERING DATA:

a) Primary data: We used survey method of research to collect the data from primary sources and

found

• Almost 94% use Social networking sites, the remaining 6% youth don’t use due to lack

of knowledge about them and include youth in rural areas.

• Most of these 94% people spend atleast an hour to four hours in SNS which include

Whatsapp.

• 50% of youth do Online Gambling

• 90% think that overuse may lead to addiction.

• 60% feel that the addiction affects mental behavior starting with anxiety.

b) Secondary Data: It is the basis of our primary data collection and we have done our literature

review on various online articles and journals written by various authors. The results found are:

It can be seen from the figure that in 2014, the usage of SNSs is increased in 2014. So, we can

draw a conclusion that some of the youth, who are already using SNSs got addicted in 2014.

Otherwise, the number would have fallen in 2014.

6. CONCLUSION & ANALYSIS:

• After the research, we can conclude with utmost certainty that Social Media indeed leads

to Mental Disorders.

• We can also conclude that everyone is connected to social media in one way or the

another irrespective of caste, creed, gender etc.

• We used both primary data and secondary data to conduct our research. Primary data

included Online Surveys and Secondary data included Already Conducted Surveys,

Online Articles, Other Online Publications etc.

• Excessive use of Social Media is the reason behind various ailments and has ill effects

like anxiety, social awkwardness and decreased productivity.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Within the

hour

hours2

interval

Everyday 2 days interval Weekly

Series1

• Social Media was introduced to help people stay in touch with each other but it is turning

out to be a curse instead of a blessing.

Remedies and Solutions:

• Firewall: A Firewall is a filter which is put on by the Internet Service Provider to restrict

the use of a few websites. Social Networking Sites can be put under Firewall in order to

restrict it’s usage. Educational institutions usually put up such firewall to not let students

use SNS. For Example: Christ University.

• Counsellors: It’s high time to address the problems caused by Social Networking Sites as

they take up a substantial part of our day. Counsellors should be provided to the people

who are facing problems like anxiety, social awkwardness, dual personality disorder, bi

polar behaviour etc.

• Personality Development Classes: Our research also found out that the reason behind

excessive use of Social Media is that people often find it difficult to speak in public

and/or face-to-face. Instead of choosing Social Media as the last resort, people should

take up PD classes to be able to convey their thoughts properly.

RESEARCH CIA Topic: CAN EXCESSIVE

USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

CONTRIBUTE TO

ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOURS

OR MENTAL HEALTH

ISSUES

- Ayush (1310904)

Harsha (1310911)

Yash (1310919)

Ankush(1310948) Devjit (1310949)

Amaan (1310950)

Prakhar (1310952)

Rounak (1310980)