The Social Addict: For The Out-Of-Control Social Media User

Introduction

D

o you think that you’re addicted to social media? Why or why not?

Is there even such a thing as a social media addiction?

If so, what are its signs or symptoms, as well its effects?

And what about its interventions?

Also called Social Networking Addiction or SNA, social media addiction is the latest form of addiction to have emerged as a result of technological advancement brought about by the Internet. But even if it’s considered new in the realm of clinical sciences, it’s actually an all too familiar phenomenon in the behavioral sciences.

That’s because there’s a marked difference between someone who does social media networking for leisure, someone who does it for a living, and someone who does it out of compulsion. For the first one, social media networking is just another optional activity to pass the time. For the second one, social media networking is a way to earn money. But for the last one, social media networking is more of a response to an underlying problem.

While social media addiction is referred to as an ‘addiction,’ there are currently no standard clinical or scientific ways in place to warrant for its diagnosis. Lately, a number of online tests have spawned in order for people to know if they are addicted to social media networking or not. The reliability of these pop tests are undetermined but they sure have become a fad.

Even then, people are curious if their behavior as they relate with social media networking can be classified as an addiction, or something more saliently related to it. That begs the question: how can one not know that he or she is addicted to something? Awareness is an important factor in acknowledging a looming addictive behavior – something that online pop tests cannot ‘test.’

So granted that if social media addiction is relevant in the realms of medical and social sciences, then it must follow that it has its own signs, symptoms, effects, and interventions. In the same way, it must also have its own set of literature to help shed light on the idea that one can indeed become a social media addict.

That set of literature is found in this book. While there is a lack of research work and clinical studies on the subject of social media addiction, this book explores the available theoretical concepts out there. You’ll learn about the history of four of the biggest social media platforms in the world and get to know more about what’s good and what’s bad on social media.

In addition, you’ll also discover the theoretical perspectives of addiction in general and how they apply to social media addiction. From these theories, you’ll get to know the symptoms, the effects, and the causes of social media addiction. You’ll be surprised to learn that you may be already exhibiting such symptoms and effects.

Finally, this book offers practical intervention measures in order to minimize the possibility of you becoming a social media addict – or how to overcome such an addiction, if you consider yourself as an addict. In the end, this book seeks to inform, to educate, and to offer ways to help young people out there realize that there’s more to the world than scrolling through their social media feed.

Thank you, and I hope you'll learn a lot from this book.

Contents

Introduction

PART ONE

THE STATE OF SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMPTION

Chapter One. Facebook

Chapter Two. Instagram

Chapter Three. Youtube

Chapter Four. Twitter

PART TWO

SOCIAL MEDIA: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

Chapter Five. The Good

Chapter Six. The Bad

Chapter Seven. The Ugly

PART THREE

THE THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES OF SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKING ADDICTION

Chapter Eight. The Theoretical Perspectives of Addiction

Chapter Nine. The Components Model and Social Media Networking Addiction

Chapter Ten. Theories About The Development Of Social Media Addiction

PART FOUR

SOME SYMPTOMS AND EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKING ADDICTION

Chapter Eleven. Some Symptoms of Social Media Addiction

Chapter Twelve. Some Effects of Social Media Addiction

PART FIVE

SO ARE YOU A SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKING ADDICT?

Chapter Thirteen. Strategies to Overcome Social Media Networking Addiction

Final Words. Social Media Is Not Your Apple

Conclusion

PART ONE

THE STATE OF SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMPTION

Social media consumption is defined as the sum of all the information acquired by individuals or groups by engaging in activities within social media networking platforms. The amount of consumption is dependent on the frequency that a person visits a social media network, the length of time that the same person spends on the network, and how long he or she keeps his account on the network.

In this section, you’ll get to learn the latest statistics involving four of the world’s biggest social media networking platforms: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. You’ll learn more about their history, their user base, their user demographics, their consumption numbers, and other relevant information.

Chapter One. Facebook

THE BEGINNING

I

f you watched the movie The Social Network, there’s a good chance that you’re familiar with the history of Facebook. However, due to rebuttals about the accuracy of the events in the movie, it would be good to revisit what really happened by looking at a timeline.

It was in 2003 that Mark Zuckerberg made his initial attempt to launch what a social media networking site that was called Facemash. After being online for two days, Facemash had to be shut down because Zuckerberg, who was the site’s primary developer, violated university policies when it came to the resources he used to build the site. However, by then, it registered 450 people.

The initial success of Facemash led Zuckerberg to register the URL, www.thefacebook.com. That was when other key players, by the names of Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin, came into the scene.

In February of 2004, TheFacebook.com was launched. The primary features of the site was that Harvard students were able to post photos of themselves and ‘stories’ about their lives. As the social networking platform grew in popularity, it started to welcome students from other universities like Stanford and Yale as members.

By June of 2004, around 250,000 students representing 34 schools have joined the network. Later that year, MasterCard entered the scene as a paying advertiser. This would be something that Facebook would consider doing in later years through its advertising services.

In September of the same year, the Wall was introduced. It was added as a section to the members’ profiles. By the close of 2004, the social network registered one million users. At that time, it was still called TheFacebook. And while it already had a million users, it was