Internet Addiction: Just Facebook Me! The Role of Social Networking Sites in Internet Addiction

Computer Technology and Application 3 (2012) 262-267

Internet Addiction: Just Facebook Me! The Role of Social Networking Sites in Internet Addiction

Carrie L. Carmody

Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, US

Received: November 21, 2011 / Accepted: December 02, 2011 / Published: March 25, 2012.

Abstract: Internet based social-networking sites like Facebook are highly attractive, user-friendly, and increasingly popular. Current estimates indicate over 750 million users of Facebook alone. However, Internet addiction is an increasing problem amongst today’s youth and as yet, is understudied in the United States. This study looked at the relationship between this new social-networking tool and the increasing phenomenon of internet addiction symptoms using both a US college sample (age 19years) and a US high-school sample (age 14years). Findings indicate that SNS (Social Networking Site) activity maybe more predictive of addictive behaviors than general internet use and that higher percents of symptomology occur in those users reporting SNS activity as their primary internet activity.

Key words: Social networking, internet addiction, youth.

1. Introduction

Today’s youth have an additional tool to utilize in social interaction not available to previous generations: the social networking site (SNS). Social networking sites are perhaps the fastest growing application of the internet today. A key element of these sites is a personalized profile created and posted by the user. Hobbies, education, physical appearance and age, favorite activities, books, music and personal photos of friends and self are incorporated into a web page that is uniquely that of the user. Friendship networks are formed and displayed, and groups around issues and brand preferences are formed. In this paper we discuss the initial findings of the relationship between SNS usage and internet addiction. The paper is organized into the following sections: Section 1.1 and 1.2 give an introductory overview of SNS and internet addiction respectively; section 2 discusses the methods used for this study; section 3 details the statistical results; section 4 is a brief discussion of

Corrsponding author: Carrie L. Carmody, Ph.D., research field: developmental psychology. E-mail: ccarmody@uci.edu.

the findings; and section 5 is the conclusion.

1.1 Social Networking Sites

According to a recent Pew Report, 93% of American teens are on-line, nearly 2/3 of these are on-line daily and 70% of all teens use social networking sites [1] SNS allow individuals to construct a personal virtual profile, create a network of virtual users with whom they share a connection, and interact within their chosen virtual network [2].

This electronic communication, long considered to be available only to those of a certain socio-economic status (SES), is now mainstream; the digital divide is shrinking. As of August 2011, there are no longer significant differences in internet access based on SES, gender or ethnicity [3]. Given the widespread prevalence of usage, research on understanding the role of this new medium in the role of teens lives is needed.

The largest social networking site, in fact the largest social media site, today is Facebook. Founded in 2004 and available to the public in 2007, Facebook currently boasts 750 million global users, any half of whom visit

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the site daily and spend over 70 billion minutes on Facebook each month [4]. Connecting more than just

“friends”, Facebook integrates with over 10,000 new websites every day; over 250 million websites currently connect with Facebook. The average Facebook user is connected to 130 friends and to over 80 community pages, groups and events, including those of most major brands and companies. “To put Facebook’s Internet presence in perspective, the combined daily circulation of the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, and the New York Post equals only 36% of the average daily unique visitors to Facebook” [5].

Previous research has indicated that use of SNS, can lead to an increase in well-being and social capital [6]

increased social involvement [7] and similar sites like chat rooms can facilitate the formation of new relationships [8]. All of this seems to warrant a positive endorsement, but a new phenomenon is also plaguing our youth: internet addiction. Research has indicated that individuals seeking social support on-line, a possible key factor in SNS usage, are more likely to suffer an internet addiction [9-10], while others have found that those individuals disposed to make friends and interact with people, or those considered extraverted, are buffered against internet addiction [7].

The role of SNS in internet addiction symptomology needs to be studied.

1.2 Internet Addiction

South Korea and China estimate that over 11 million teens in their countries suffer from an internet addiction [11-12] and these governments have instituted mandatory treatment programs [13] in an attempt to correct the problem. Parents complain of decreasing interest in school, family and real-world activities, and a reduction in psychosocial well-being. Some reports indicate that South Korean youth spend an average 23 hours a week involved in internet activity [14] while American youth spend an average of six hours a day

on-line [15], making it the number one daily activity of American youth next to sleeping. Prevalence of internet addiction in the United States is hard to measure as most internet behavior occurs at home and may not be accurately reported but Aboujaoude, et al.

[16] estimated between 4% and 13% of adult users suffered from problem internet behavior. There are no large studies to date looking at youth internet addiction in the United States.

Internet addiction is a scientifically imprecise definition used to denote problems in internet usage regulation and while not a true diagnostic label, serves to accurately describe what many users, clinicians and lay people have come to understand as a disordered pattern of internet use [13]. Like other addictions, problem behavior is that which interferes with regular daily functioning. Several dimensions of internet addiction have been identified and they include: losing control of time; using the internet to escape; a compulsive response; and interference with relationships and real-world functioning [16-17].

Studies have found that internet use can reduce the psychosocial well-being of youth by contributing to depression and loneliness [18-19] though in 2002, researchers [7] tempered their previous claims stating that individuals generally experienced positive effects on well-being and social involvement if they were extraverts but claimed introverts still did not fare well.

However, more recent research has found links between extraversion and addictive behaviors in those exhibiting higher levels of extraversion [20] and research on individual differences and internet addiction is needed.

Most research on internet addiction has centered on

general internet usage and not the specific activity of

the user. This broad brush stroke does not tease apart

the actual addictive draw of any specific content and

assumes just logging-on is all that matters. This is the

equivalent of studying general television watching

without considering the program content and making

broad claims about potential harmful effects. Not all

internet activities are the same and Young [21] even in the relative infancy of wide-spread internet use, recommended research on internet specific applications. A few studies have been done on specific internet activities and researchers have found a link between internet addiction behaviors and a few specific internet activities like instant-messaging [22] or internet gaming [11]. Anecdotal evidence indicates that SNS, like Facebook, have an addictive pull and users complain about a time loss when involved but to date no study has looked at whether the specific use of SNS is associated with addiction. Given previous findings of the relationship between similar type activities and addiction behaviors, it is predicted that SNS activity will show similar trends in psychosocial well-being, personality, and addictive behaviors associated with internet use.

This initial study was designed to measure the addictive types of behavior associated with SNS usage and determine if there is indeed any empirical evidence for the anecdotal complaints of Facebook addiction.

2. Methods

The sample consisted of two distinct populations.

The first consisted of 337 college students, mean age 19.7 years old, SD = 1.75, range 18-31 years with significant racial diversity in the sample. These students self-selected into the study by means of an on-line registration process for class credit at a large western university. The participants in the first sample were given a battery of self-report instruments designed to measure personality (BFI-41), internet and SNS usage, depression (CES-D), self-esteem (Rosenberg Self Esteem scale), a brief questionnaire on SNS usage and a scale of 9-items looking at problem internet behavior drawn from previous studies and adapted to be SNS specific. The Internet Addiction Test (IAT), developed by Young and later expanded, targets behaviors known to be problematic like loss of time, compulsive reactions and interference with real-world functioning. For this study, and to measure

the direct impact of SNS, the test was adapted by replacing the word “internet” with “SNS. The reliability of the adapted addiction scale in this sample was 0.833. Ninety-one percent of participants reported daily Facebook use with nearly half the sample (45.4%) spending more than an hour a day on Facebook. In fact, two-thirds of the sample reported Facebook use as their primary activity when on the internet.

The second sample consisted of 93 high school freshman age 14 years who were participating in a global perspectives curriculum at a middle-class high school. While diversity data was not collected on the sample, the school has an ethnically diverse population.

They were administered a brief questionnaire on SNS usage and were also administered an expanded scale of 15 items looking at problem internet behavior similarly adapted to be SNS specific. The reliability of the adapted addiction scale in this sample was 0.909.

3. Results

Previous researchers [23] have measured internet addiction in two ways. The first utilizes total scale scores. Participants whose total scores are above 70%

of the total points possible are considered internet addicted; those scoring between 40 and 69% of the total points possible are considered possibly addicted;

and those scoring lower that 40% of the total points possible are non-addicted. These studies have found that between 3 and 5% of their samples were definitely addicted, and another 30% possibly addicted. Results of this study found a much higher portion of the college sample (11%) reporting specific SNS addictive behaviors than previous general internet addiction studies and more surprising, 2/3 of the sample reported possible SNS addiction (Table 1). The high school sample was comparable to previous general internet addiction results (Table 2).

The second method of determining internet

addiction is based on the number of symptoms a

participant exhibits (Table 3). Those indicating more

than 4 symptoms (answering either a 4 or 5 on a scale

Table 1 College sample SNS addicted based on percent of total points scored.

Frequency Percent

Not addicted 75 22.3

Possibly addicted 225 66.8

Addicted 37 11.0

Total 337 100.0

Table 2 High school sample SNS addicted based on percent of total points scored.

Frequency Percent

Not addicted 48 64.0

Possibly addicted 26 34.7

Addicted 1 1.3

Total 75 100.0

Table 3 College sample number of symptoms reported.

Frequency Percent

Less than 4 symptoms 231 68.5 4 or more symptoms 106 31.5

Total 337 100.0

item) are considered to have an internet addiction problem [24]. In this study nearly 32% of the college sample reported 4 or more symptoms of SNS addiction and nearly one in five of the high school sample reported 4 or more SNS addiction symptoms.

As in previous studies on general internet addiction, depression and self-esteem were significant predictors of SNS addiction in the college sample (Table 5). The more depressive symptoms an individual reported, the more likely they were to score higher on the SNS addiction scale. Also, those individuals reporting lower self-esteem scores were significantly more likely to report higher SNS addiction scores. Surprisingly, and in contrast to some previous internet addiction research, the higher an individual scored in the trait of extraversion, the more likely they were to report an increase in SNS addiction behaviors.

Regression analyses also reveal that those whose primary activity when on-line is Facebook, report higher instances of addictive behaviors even when controlling for time spent (Table 6). It is important to note that while time spent on the internet in general predicted SNS addiction in the high school sample, when teased apart in the college sample, general internet

Table 4 High school sample number of symptoms reported.

Frequency Percent

Less than 4 symptoms reported 58 77.3 4 or more symptoms reported 17 22.7

Total 75 100.0

Table 5 Personality regression coefficients predictive ability on SNS addiction in college sample.

Model B Std. error Beta t Sig.

(Constant) 26.55 3.11 8.54 0.000 Depression 0.287 0.060 0.245 4.80 0.000*

Self-esteem -0.608 0.098 -0.344 -6.19 0.000*

Extraversion 0.244 0.066 0.206 3.69 0.000*

*p = < 0.01

Table 6 Time and primary activity regression coefficients in high school sample.

Model B Std. error Beta t Sig.

(Constant) 9.892 3.10 3.193 0.002 Internet time 4.410 0.903 0.439 4.884 0.000*

SNS primary

activity 9.297 1.99 0.419 4.655 0.000*

*p =< 0.01

Table 7 Time and Primary activity regression coefficients in college sample.

Model B Std. error Beta t Sig.

(Constant) 15.31 2.94 5.21 0.000 SNS time 1.54 0.235 0.342 6.56 0.000*

Internet time 0.010 0.485 0.001 0.020 0.984 SNS primary

activity 0.668 0.210 0.165 3.18 0.002*

*p = < 0.01

use did not significantly predict SNS specific addiction scores (Table 7). This indicates that it is more likely the specific activity the user is engaged in rather than merely logging-on that accounts for the addictive behaviors.

4. Discussion

It was expected that SNS activity would be similar to other internet activities in generating addictive behaviors, and the results support this hypothesis.

Personality and well-being factors were significantly

predictive of SNS addiction, similar to general internet

addiction. However, what is surprising is the increased

percentage of individuals reporting addictive behaviors directly related to their Facebook activity. Nearly 2/3 of the college sample reported some addictive behaviors and 1/3 of the high-school sample reported symptoms. This exceeds previous findings of general internet addiction in US adult samples and could indicate a societal problem similar to that experienced in China and South Korea. At the least, more research is needed into specific applications on the internet, the role of SNS in addictive symptomology and individual difference factors that may predict addiction.

Given that the data is self-report in a cross-sectional design, there are obvious limitations to any generalizations one can make about SNS usage and addiction. This is the first study to delve into the connection between these two new social phenomena in an adolescent sample and it is hoped that future studies can build upon this initial picture. Today’s youth are growing-up with one foot firmly rooted in the virtual world. It is important that we study the impacts of this new environment as they develop.

Facebook is a relatively new tool in social interaction, and this very newness could be contributing to its overuse and thus manifesting in addictive symptoms for many users. It is possible that as society becomes more comfortable with social media and electronic socialization, that users will learn to integrate this new tool and moderate its usage.

5. Conclusions

In sum, this initial study found a large potential for addiction related to Social Network Site activity. As the popularity and use of SNS increases, it is important to create awareness of the possible ramifications of over-use. Future research should attempt to tease apart the impact of not just internet use, but the impact of specific applications on the internet. Additionally, the personality types and characteristics of users need to be examined when trying to understand on-line behaviors.

Social support and connection are important, but it appears that in the virtual world one can be too

connected.

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