Many parents are glued to their phones, are we becoming addicted to social media? In a day and age where information is readily available are we taking for granted what is important in our lives? As I fell into the rabbit hole of Social media and Psychology papers, as well as child neglect cases I began to question my own use of the social media platform “facebook”. I try to limit my use only using sporadically throughout the day, but I wonder if the addiction stems deeper then that. Addiction as defined in Psychology today “is a condition in which a person engages in use of a substance or in a behavior for which the rewarding effects provide a compelling incentive to repeatedly pursue the behavior despite detrimental consequences.” Facebook and social media fits right in with that category. There is a scale that has been developed by Dr. Cecilie Andraessen and the team at University of Bergen (UiB) called the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale, its rather shocking that they needed to develop a tool to determine the level of addiction a person has to facebook. However Dr Mark Griffiths argues “With the fast pace at which electronic media and sites that started primarily for social networking, are changing and offering an increasingly varied number of activities, Griffiths suggests the term “Facebook addiction”, like “Internet addiction” may already be obsolete.” Is society evolving faster than todays’ top psychologists can keep up?
https://drmarkgriffiths.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/network-premiere-can-facebook-be-addictive/
“Development of a Facebook Addiction Scale”; Cecilie Schou Andreassen, Torbjorn Torsheim, Geir Scott Brunborg, and Stale Pallesen; Psychological Reports, Apr 2012, Volume 110, Issue 2, pp. 501-517; DOI:10.2466/02.09.18.PR0.110.2.501-517
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/245251.php
Image source: https://me.me/i/im-not-addicted-to-facebook-i-just-use-it-when-3578848
