‘I am clearly addicted’: New study’s alarming results
May 6, 2010 by Geneva ReidPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Tech News
“I am clearly addicted and the dependency is sickening,” said one college student. Think he’s talking about drugs or alcohol? Guess again … The addiction is to social media. That’s right: Facebook, iPods, e-mail and cell phones.
The University of Maryland at College Park conducted a recent study in which 200 students were asked to stop using all social media for 24 hours.
The students were then told to write about the experience — and the results are alarming.
Here are the highlights (for the complete study, click here):
- They used literal terms of addiction: The words students used to describe the experience of being “unplugged” were the same terms people use when referring to their drug and alcohol addictions. Examples: in withdrawal, frantically craving, very anxious, extremely antsy, miserable, jittery, crazy.
- They want to be connected all the time: Students hated being without social media, feeling the loss of the cell phone most of all. One student wrote: “Texting and IM-ing my friends gives me a constant feeling of comfort. When I did not have those two luxuries, I felt quite alone and secluded from my life.”
- They constantly text and go on Facebook: One student wrote, “Texting and Facebook allow me to make plans to meet up and act socially, whereas without these two devices I had no easy way of making plans unless I happened to run into the person I wanted to do something with.”
According to Project Director Susan D. Moeller, a common theme was that students associated loss of social media with loss of personal connections.
“Going without media meant, in their world, going without their friends and family,” Moeller said.
How seriously should we treat the results of this study? Is it as dangerous to be addicted to social media as it would be to drugs and alcohol?
Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
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Tags: addiction, facebook, iPod, social media
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May 5th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Ironically, unlike some addictions (like alcoholism) where it is at its worse when addicts do it alone, social media addiction becomes problematic when done in groups. I think the photo attached to this post tells the story. How sad it is to see a group of people together, who could easily engage with each other, separately engaged with their devices, “conversing” with people somewhere else. Urgent communications is an exception. Sometimes, you just need to quickly exchange information with someone. But, sitting in the middle of a crowded room with people you know (or COULD get to know) and choosing to text someone elsewhere just seems unhealthy to me. I know students often communicate with each other in this fashion when they are in the same classroom together. Although they should probably be paying attention or taking notes, I’d say that this form of social networking has a different purpose and should not be considered “addictive.” In that case, it truly is “social” networking. I think it all depends, but when social networking borders on ANTI-social networking, THEN a person needs to take a look at themselves and ask themselves if the technology is truly BRIDGING gaps or merely CREATING them.
May 5th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
It’s just another symptom of an alienated world, cogs in a big corporate machine. When living humans CHOOSE and PREFER to be in “contact” with each other only through the distancing medium of electronic communications, it indicates a serious sickness in society as a whole.
It would be very good for all these folks to be forced to learn how to interact face-to-face or at least in real time on a phone AND also to learn to savor and cherish some time each day ENJOYING being alone and uninterrupted for thinking, introspection, meditation.
Too many modern people are terrified of being alone inside themselves with just their own thoughts.
All of which is very scary indeed. Unplugging more would be a very good thing.
BTW, I am an electronic resources librarian and make my living managing online databases, e-books and the like. They have their value and their place, but it is not good when people get so sucked up into the virtual world that they cease being able to function comfortably without it.
May 5th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Social Networking “addiction” should not be considered the same as, or as problematic as, alcohol or drug addition. Alcohol and/or drug addiction is a physical, nearly unmanageable problem. To equate social networking withdrawals with a real physiological addiction is a bit extreme, or so that is my opinion.
I am quite “addicted” – and I use that for lack of a better word – to my social networking mechanisms. I email and text more than I talk on the phone. Internet browsing for no particular reason is my haven. I rarely print or give out real pictures anymore. Rather, I share them through networking sites or as a Picture Message to my friends and family. However, when I am sitting in a group of people, I still follow conventional social behavior. It is beyond rude to sit with a group of people you know and text outside the group. That is just poor manners – not a physiological problem that can’t be overcome.
May 5th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
I’m also intrigued — not surprised — at the statement that these people feel lonely and isolated when they’re not using these social media applications. These technologies are supposed to bring us together, but instead they seem to be doing the opposite. Rather than having face-to-face conversations with the people around them, people — and not just students — will spend time on their computers sending messages or “updates” to these web sites. I don’t know how important it is to know that you’re having lunch at McDonald’s, Obviously, I’m ignoring the advertising benefit to McDonald’s that you’ve just freely supplied for them, which is part of the paradigm these are all built on. Keep people using the application so you can send more advertising at them while they’re staring at the screen. On top of that, use their personal activities — where they shop, eat, what movie they see — as a means of guerrilla advertising, making the web site more desirable as an advertising medium.
Similar to other addictions, which Tim didn’t mention, is the number of people who need to run home to harvest their crops on FarmVille rather than spend time with their buddies who would like to spend time together in person. If social media applications start interfering with the ability to work, spend time with others, or undertake necessary daily activities, there might (might?) be an addiction problem.
May 5th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
I find it interesting to think about the fine line between between addiction and everyday activity. For instance, these researchers positioned the use of social media by college students as an addivtive activity. What about the other things these college students do multiple times a day, every day? For instance, assuming they are getting their recommended eight glasses of H2O per day, would we say they are addicted to water? What about tying their shoes–they do this activity multiple times a day–does that make them addicted to tying their shoes? In short, I ask, what is the difference between being addicted to something and something simply being a cultural/behavioral norm?
If you haven’t already, I recommend reading the book “Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives”, authored by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser. Upon reading this book, the line between an addiction to social media and ingrained cultural/behavioral norm becomes highly blurred.
May 5th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
How can this be a problem? The American Psychiatric Association has not called it a problem so it is not a problem. When they decide that it is a problem, it will be found to be a chemical imbalance and there will also be medication for it.
My tongue is firmly planted in my cheek…
May 5th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
More ironically, my first instinct was to post this article on Facebook.
May 5th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
LOL!
I think that’s a great idea. In fact, I believe I will.
May 5th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
“…I had no easy way of making plans unless I happened to run into the person I wanted to do something with.”
Ever heard of a telephone with a wire running to the wall? Or did this experiment ban using a land line also? (granted, some of these students probably don’t have a land line, and pay phones are tough to find these days)
May 5th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
I love this from ShuGirl:
“Social Networking “addiction” should not be considered the same as, or as problematic as, alcohol or drug addition.”
who then goes on to say that she is “addicted” to social networking.
Like saying “I can handle mine…”
Addiction is addiction.
May 5th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Try asking your child, or niece or nephew, to put the phone into the purse or pocket during the family dining period. They look at your with a glare and ignore the request. Interpersonal relations suffer, as do their training in relational skills and vocal communication. The risks are pervasive. Social degredation, driving safety, even family relations — all are suffering.
In my case, the additional addiction that both unnerves and frightens me for lack of being able to influence behavior, is xbox gaming. Kids playing WOW and other games online for hours on end, foresaking family time, homework time, outdoor play time and even interacting personally with other kids – all for the sake of more unending online play. No good will come of it.
May 5th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
I find it interesting that several comments (and lots of other people I’ve heard elsewhere on this topic) say “kids today” are texting etc with friends instead of interacting face-to-face, rather than that they are texting in addition to interacting face-to-face with their friends. The students quoted above talk about using social media to plan face-to-face interactions that would be less likely to happen without that means of planning, which seems to mean they are doing more face-to-face interacting as a result of using social media. Saying they feel alone and secluded if they cannot be in virtual contact with their friends doesn’t seem to me to imply that they prefer that to being with them in person. As for striking up conversations with strangers in their physical vicinity they could get to know rather than texting friends who are not present, well, I rarely do that when I’m in line at the grocery store.
But then, I don’t mind being alone with nothing but my thoughts. To the extent there is a problem here, I don’t think it is at all a problem with losing out on in-person or face-to-face social contact. Rather, the problem is precisely the opposite: they are not able to be out of contact with friends and being, as one commenter put it, alone inside themselves with just their own thoughts.
May 5th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
“Kids today” indeed.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/korean_couple_addicted_starve_virtual_geeJRZbBHuJMa5du26gT6O
This is far from a kids-only problem. I know plenty of adults who tend to their Farmvilles and Petvilles and Yo-what-have-you-villes as if they were real. And there’s nothing more depressing than watching a “grown-up” couple on a date texting simultaneously during dinner.
May 5th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Please note that I also said “for lack of a better word” when I called myself “addicted”. The question of the article is does one think that social networking is an addiction in the vain of alcohol or drug addiction. My comments were to illustrate the point that I do not believe social networking is along those same addictive lines. Thanks, Rick, for using my comments to your advantage. Try posting something constructive next time.
May 5th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
I’m not sure I get it. How is use of “social media” an “addiction”, yet talking to other human beings, seeking out companionship, having intimate contact, and the like is not? If you put anyone in a cave cut off from all human contact, they will become uncomfortable (take note of solitary confinement in prison). The difference in this situation is that people do have other means of communicating with their peers but it is often difficult to do so. For example, I am married with a child and all of us have cell phones but we haven’t had a land line in five or six years.
Addiction is defined as the persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful. When use of social media becomes harmful to one’s relationships/career, etc., it could be considered an addiction. I wonder if people had similar thoughts when telephone use became widespread.
May 6th, 2010 at 7:13 am
Ha, I did post this on fb- before I read the comments.
May 6th, 2010 at 9:57 am
As a college instructor, I find myself competing with social networking during class. Students who tend to engage in this activity often ask numerous questions and are often behind in their classwork because they have not been paying attention to the class discussion. However, at times I’ve been able to strike a compromise with some of my “techno-addicts.” I provide learning opportunities during the class session in which students can use their phones for educational purposes, such as looking up vocabulary words or theoretical terms that may contribute to the class discussion. Afterwards, many of my students feel like they have gotten their “fix” and tend to be slightly more focused (and grateful) because they have been given this outlet.
May 6th, 2010 at 9:58 am
Keeping a journal of what you are deprived of for twenty-four hours, or for longer periods such as Lent, is hardly a measure of behavioral addiction. Some of us may be convinced by brain scans of morphine addicts and alcohol addicts in withdrawal when compared to “social networking junkies” brain scans that the habituation to face-book™ is an “addiction.”
Social media, as a measure of our recent cultural expression, there is more here than self referential estimations of what it is like not texting or going on line to link up with people you desire to hear from or write to.
My first response to social media, is at least some people practice writing and thinking in multi-media formats. And the more you express your ideas, the clearer they may become. Is that bad? I am not sure. But like “social” drinking, electronically enhanced communication can take many forms. The habits described here as addiction seem no worse than people who do not have a car for twenty-four hours, or electricity, or phones and can be stranded in some cities where automobiles are a must-have-commodity. To my mind drunk driving, or sexual assault, is a far worse behaviorally toxic trait exhibited by many in our colleges and society-at-large that may also be labelled addictive, based on interviews with or journals of the perpetrators of repeat offenses.
I am reminded of Octavio Paz’s line in the Labyrinth os Solitude to the effect that as solitary beings we long to find ourselves in the life of another, or the lives of others, to leap over our isolation and communion with the world. Yes the form of social media is novel, but if it be an obsessive behavior, I am not so sure this is our worst or even a serious compulsion. Just annoying, perhaps to those of us, outside of the many social media circles.
May 6th, 2010 at 10:00 am
This behavior sounds more symptomatic of disordered attachment than “addiction.”
May 13th, 2010 at 7:35 am
joseph siry and others make an argument that texting communication is at least communicating, but I feel that what is being communicated can be a problem. Is it vapid or piquant, narrowing or expansive, and so on? When I walk around campus especially during the daytime, students coming out of class immediately flip out phones and call someone, walking and talking between class dorm etc. I suppose since they were not permitted to use the phones or text in class, then they have an urge to be reconnected, perhaps like an aperitif to clear out the aftertaste of my lecture. I think that many call high school friends at distant locations rather than simply connecting with that student standing next to you; somehow social network communication seems to be bringing back together or keeping from separating old acquaintances (especially high school cliques). Phone, text, Facebook blogging … are more oral than literate forms (I mean this in McLuhan’s and Ong’s definitions, not the lay meaning of oral and literate, if you are interested see Ong’s ‘Orality and Literacy’), and this has implications for kinds of cognition. Unlike the post above that actually relate to the topic, it seems like most forums deteriorate to name calling after about 10 posts. Why is that? Maybe I read the wrong sites?
May 13th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
“both orality, and the growth of literacy out of orality, are necessary for evolution of consciousness” (175). There is more to suggest that we are in the midst of a critical junction in these twin paths: the oral and the literate. I am not sure about what Ong suggests, other than both forms create a stereoscopic comprehension of experience, In a mixed media culture such as ours the confusion on campuses among, literate print media, oral expressive media (radio, film, TV, music and drama), and visual media still suggest to me that we have an enriched condition that requires us to instruct one another about the limitations and possibilities for deepening our appreciation and understanding of the world to the extent that each of these forms of expression facilitate our conversations differently. My faith remains in the belief that if a potentially thoughtful person communicates banalities over and over again, they can with some coaxing, learn to be less banal? The baby imitates sounds before the child forms phonemes with understandable inflections. I am not convinced that techniques limit us, its not what tools you use to expand your intelligence, it is after all, how your intelligence may expand as you utilize new tools and transcend their inherent limitations.
May 13th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
While Ong is, it appears, ambiguous (p. 175) about the complementarity of literacy and orality, of course you are correct when you write “what is being communicated can be a problem. Is it vapid or piquant, narrowing or expansive, and so on?” In the sense that “educational television,” is an oxymoron, of course media tools can convey inane information, misinformation, and even deceitful ideas. I still do not blame the medium as much as I suggest we teach people about the limitations of and the possibilities of each media’s inherent capacity to distort what we know, hear, and see. Unchallenged, any media perverts our opportunities to comprehend what we express. So I think we need to engage those ever more disengaged students and to some extent lure them away from their self-reinforcing biases and unexamined banalities.