Social Media Addiction

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Social Media Writings

3 min readNov 7, 2019

What is addiction?

When we refer to someone as being addicted, we usually mean that someone is under the influence of a substance. Using that substance even though the user knows it could be harmful and where the user cannot help their behaviour. But how does addictions develop? Our brain releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine in a region of the brain when we receive pleasure such as eating a good meal. This is an example of naturally occurring pleasure, eating. However with drugs the amount of dopamine released is greater than, from say eating a good meal. We would then prefer the substance that gives us more “pleasure” and this leads us to seek the substance again. Our brain also combines liking this drug substance with wanting it. Over time we can tolerate the amount of the substance and need more of it, which then leads to addiction [1].

So, how are we addicted to social media? Well according to researcher Trevor Haynes receiving notifications on our social media share the same dopamine signature as gambling meaning an amount of dopamine is released in our brain when we check our notifications. We get addicted to social media since we get an immediate reward with low effort (Thumb tap to check notifications) which can rewire our brain to desire likes. Brain scans of those addicted to social media is similar to drug-dependent brains [2].

Okay, so we might be addicted to social media, but is that a bad thing? According to one study (Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity by Adrian et al.) when a smartphone is present, for example on a person’s desk, their cognitive capacity is reduced than when there is no smartphone. Also the more we use social media the more we crave it and have less time for other activities or work. Similar characteristics to substance abuse, only this time the substance is social media.

Is being addicted to social media our fault? Well, one could always make the argument that it is our responsibility to know when to quit. However, this does not acquit social media companies from any blame. Tech companies like Instagram and facebook utilize a pull-down swipe which refreshes the page and that can be linked to pulling down a slot machine. Since the principles are the same, a user pulls down his or her newsfeed and awaits information that is unknown to them. The reason tech companies are partly if not mostly responsible for social media addiction, is that they intentionally design their platforms to be as engaging as possible. Social media platforms do not need the pull-down to refresh feature and could update newsfeed information automatically upon opening but they choose to keep it [3].

Why should we worry? Well with more computers and smartphones available the trend of having a smartphone has gone up. Around 70% of American teenagers in 2018 check their smartphone multiple times a day as opposed to 34% in 2012. This means it will be an increasing amount of people who will be addicted to their social media and more people who can be harmed by it [4].

Back in 2014 Facebook faced some backlash after it was revealed that they conducted an experiment on around 700,000 users. The users’ home feed would be altered and found out that it could change the feelings of people. By filtering out the positive posts by friends of users, facebook could alter the mood of their users [5]. When using social media as much as we do, it can lead to companies wishing to exploit us so that they may benefit on our behalf. Another trouble fact is that facebook has a patent to look at you when you are using their platform [6]. The reason for doing so is to analyze the your emotions so they could filter out content which might make you feel bad [7]. However, I believe this can be used unethically for another experiment.

In order to combat this trend of users being exploited we should work to find methods in which we do not need to use our smartphones or to urge tech companies to change their ways.

Sources

Social Media Addiction

Written by Ravindu Rajatheva