Topic:
The Relationship between Problematic Social Media use and its effects on the
Mental health of Adolescents.
Chapter I
Introduction
Merriam-Webster, Incorporated is an American company that defined Social
Media as “forms of electronic communication through which users create online
communities to share information, ideas, personal messages and other content”.
The term was first used in 2004, now it has been skyrocketed in the past several
years.
Social media that become integrated and essential part of the daily life has become
a major aspect of daily life while distributing its immense effects on the
environment. According to The World Health Organization (2021) every one in
seven adolescents having age from 10-19 are affecting by their mental health
aspects and resulting in many mental and psychological illness. Depression,
aggression, Substance abuse to suicide are the one side effects while on the
otherside online bullying which is called as cyberbullying is one of the major
problem that we are facing nowadays that has involve all internet technologies
( UNICEF,2023). Research into excessive and frequent usage of social network
activities has complied up many terms that use as title for this section of research
such as, “Social network site addiction ( SNS Addiction)”, “problematic usage of
social media and its effects” and many more. The section of users of social media
are above 3 million worldwide and approximately every 44,00000 individuals daily
upload their content on social media leading to an abnormal usage of social media
that takes another turn into their mental and physical health.
Researchers have received the relationship network social media usage and its
effects on mental health. Over the last few decades the usage of social media can
be explained by many other researchers such as, individuals visits social media
sites to engage into different website to get engage into many different types of
entertainment and social activity including playing games, socializing, passing
time, posting pictures and communicating with others (Allen et al., 2014, Ryan et
al., 2014). Although this has quickly become a normal modern phenomenon (boyd
& Ellison, 2007), concerns have been raised regarding the potential addictive use
of social media (e.g., Andreassen, 2015, Griffiths et al., 2014). Such excessive and
compulsive use has been explained by general addiction models (Griffiths, 2005)
and defined accordingly as “being overly concerned about social media, driven by
an uncontrollable motivation to log on to or use social media, and devoting so
much time and effort to social media that it impairs other important life areas”
(Andreassen & Pallesen, 2014, p. 4054). Brown & Bobkowski (2011) stated that
social media use can lead to harmful behaviors such as aggression, personality
disorder, unhealthy diet, early sexuality, tobacco and alcohol use in young people.
As a result, the psychological dependence level in social sharing develops when
this cyclical situation is repeated in order to get rid of the unwanted mood in social
media use.
Background of the Project:
Development in the research of social media is growing rapidly that shows the
immense effects of social media over social, cognitive, physical and mental health
on the adolescence. The World Health Organization (2021) stated that worldwide
mental disorders affect one in seven adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19.
The current researched knowledge on the association of social media with
adolescence is complex and difficult to follow. Problematic social media usage
among the under age kids and on adolescence is showing substance related
disorders by which detrimental effects occur. The online bullying and name
tagging which is called as Cyber bullying is now been practiced n all online
technologies ( UNICEF ,2023).Beside from the advertising usage of the social
media, if we talk about the time duration of which usage of social media can be
based, the term of problematic use, its characterize individuals who experience
addiction like symptoms as a result of social media use. An scale has been
designed to measures features of substance use disorder such as silence, tolerance,
preoccupation, impaired role performance, loss of control and withdrawal which is
associated to systematically score problematic Facebook use. This scale is known
as Andreassen et al’s scale or Facebook addiction scale. The scale is used widely
over the globe to identify and conceptualize problematic use of social media as a
behavior addiction and its associated diagnosis which include, stress, depression,
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),anxiety, panic attacks , obsessive-
compulsive disorder (OCD), and loose of intellectual abilities.
Problem Statement:
The idea that Internet use may have a negative effect on one’s wellbeing is not
new. In 1995, The HomeNet Project provided Internet access and a computer to 93
households that had no previous Internet experience and tracked their
psychological health over several years (Kraut et al., 2002). After the initial year of
Internet use the researchers concluded that greater use of the Internet was
associated with more signs of loneliness and depression. In this sense, the concept
of technological dependency has also been used to describe the extreme Internet
usage behaviors that arise due to developed technologies (Kuss & Griffiths, 2012;
Turel & Seronko, 2012). Internet addiction (Young, 2004, Sahin, 2011), game
addiction (Fisher, 1994, Griffiths & Hunt, 1998; Horzum, 2011), CyberSex
addiction (Cavaglion, 2009; Schwartz & Southern, 2000); online addiction (Tüzer,
2011), Social network addiction (Griffiths, 2012), mobile phone addiction (Bianchi
& Phillips, 2005; Fidan, 2016), Facebook addiction (Andreassen, Torsheim,
Brunborg & Pallesen, 2012), Twitter addiction (Said, Al-Rashid & Abdullah,
2014), social media disorder (van den Eijnden, Lemmens & Valkenburg, 2016)
and social media addiction (Andreassen, Torsheim, Brunborg and Pallesen, 2012;
Şahin & Yağcı, 2017) have been investigated in the context of behavioral addiction
and are gaining importance along with developing technology.
In 2012, Rosen, Cheever, and Carrier coined the term “iDisorder,” defined as the
negative relationship between technology usage and psychological health. Rosen et
el, researched on 1,143 college students who were using Facebook in their regular
routine and spent 10-15 hours on facebook. He studied that the students who are
using the social media platform facing later in their life major depressive disorder,
dysthymia, bipolar-mania, narcissism, antisocial personality disorder, and
compulsive behavior . according to the World Health Organization psychosis
Symptoms can include hallucinations or delusions. These experiences can impair
an adolescent’s ability to participate in daily life and education and often lead to
stigma or human rights violations.
Turne & Serenko (2012) demonstrate three notionally indvidual perspectives to
show the causes and formation of social network addiction:
Cognitive-behavioral model; this model emphasizes that ‘abnormal’ social
networking arises from maladaptive cognitions and is amplified by various
environmental factors, and eventually leads to compulsive and/or addictive social
networking.
Social skill model; this model emphasizes that ‘abnormal’ social networking arises
because people lack self-presentational skills and prefer virtual communication to
face-to-face interactions, and it eventually leads to compulsive and/or addictive use
of social networking.
Socio-cognitive model; this model emphasizes that ‘abnormal’ social networking
arises due to the expectation of positive outcomes, combined with internet self-
efficacy and deficient internet self-regulation eventually leads to compulsive
and/or addictive social networking behavior (Griffiths, 2013).
Social Media and Depression
A Croatian study (Pantic et al., 2012) found that high school students who spent
their time more in facebook than other things was positively correlated with
depression. Selfhout et al. (2009) studied the behavior and interrelation of
adolescents who are active users of social media, and found that adolscents who
have high frequency of social media usage reported low friendship qualities and
react to depression integrates more than two time more than the normal human
being. Conversely, those with low friendship quality who used social media
primarily for passive use at Time 1 were more likely to be depressed and socially
anxious at Time 2.
Fear of missing out (FOMO) and social media addiction.
A fear of missing out (FOMO) is a mental condition which compel you again and
again to return back to social media. FOMO makes one as fear full and worried
about the feelings that may be something is there that she/he need to see or catch
immediately on social media either it is chat with the fellows or friends or there is
an intense feelings that you may suffer your relationship with your spouse if you
did not reply the message back immediately, or there would be some important
gossip around me and about me on social group that I shall see first. Or maybe you
feel that your relationships will suffer if you don’t immediately like, share, or
respond to other people’s posts? Or there would be feelings like other people will
have better time than you if you’ll miss out any group chat. Hence, FOMO will
continuously make you feel that there is something that you need to response
immediately otherwise you will be left alone.
Social media with Anxiety and panic attacks:
The excessive usage of social media links directly with anxiety disorder, that lead
to depression, paranoia, loneliness and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in
adolescents in about 70%-86% (WHO 2021). Adolescents with social anxiety
experience fear and anxiety in social situations in which they will be negatively
evaluated or judged by others and may limit their opportunities to have meaningful
social relationships (Alden & Taylor, 2004; Clark & Wells, 1995; Hoffman,
2007; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997). Actually, social anxiety inter relatively take over
to socially anxious individuals’ their social media presence and hinder their ability
to connect with others on social media. Rceent studies shows that socially anxious
individuals exhibit behavioral symptoms of their social anxiety on social media.
After having keenly discussion and observation of Facebook profile
attributes, Fernandez, Levinson, and Rodebaugh (2012) and Weidman and
Levinson (2015) found that social anxiety can be seen both in the objective ways
that individuals presented information on their profiles, as well as in others’
impressions of their profiles; individuals with higher social anxiety showed less
social activity on their profile (e.g., fewer Facebook friends and photographs,
fewer activities listed on profile), fewer romantic relationships (e.g., relationship
status listed as “single”), and less self-disclosure (e.g., fewer status updates) than
individuals with lower social anxiety, and these findings showed medium effects.
Observers also rated the perceived level of individuals’ social anxiety based on
viewing their Facebook profiles and observed more social anxiety on more socially
anxious individuals’ profiles compared to less socially anxious individuals’
profiles.
Engaging in risky behavior is an another impact of having problematic usage of
social media which is make for the sake of gain likes shares and fame on social
media. It include dangerous pranks, post embarrassing material, cyberbully others,
or access your phone while driving or in other unsafe situation.
Chapter II
Literature Review
Carr & Hayes (2015) wrote that many internet-based networks that allow users to
communicate with others verbally and visually are referred to as ‘social media’.
Social media is now become an important platform presenting various platforms.
According to the research conducted by We Are Social (2021) reported that there
were more than 4,5 billion social media users worldwide. And every next year
almost 10 percent addition of new websites can be seen. The accounts in social
media are more than half of the world population. The usage of this social media
sites has emerged as the backbone of present communicating and interacting, since
they enable individuals to establish a sense of connecting to one another and alter
their lifestyles (Griffiths, 2019)
A systematic literature search was conducted in April 2021 using the databases
Engineering Village, PsycInfo, Pubmed, and Web of Science using the terms
“social media,” “social networking,” “mental health,” “depression,” “depressive
symptoms,” “anxiety,” and “stress.” These search terms were used to quantify
social media use in terms of problematic use. In 2023, some social media users and
statista conducted a research about the usage of social media platforms where they
estimated the platforms which are used mostly and frequently. According to the
research Facebook was an first position where every 2,958 million active users,
Youtube was in second number, third place was WhatsApp with 2,000 million
active monthly users daily. While snapchat, and instagram was in fourth number.
The ratio shows clearly that the usage of social media is become as much
necessary as much to get food.
1.1. Variable 1:
The first variable for the given research topic would be “The problematic usage
of social media”. That includes the ratio of usage of social media platform by
the number of individuals. The usage of social media by various media
platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, Whatsapp and many
other platforms have been use in wide range making an major impact on the
daily life.
1.2 Variable II:
The second variable for the choose topic is ;Mental health of the adolescents”. The
variable shows the impact of the first variable (the problematic usage of social
media) to the mental health of adolescents. The impact has been studied and
researched by many researchers making it a major portion of psychological
knowledge so that we can aware of the dangerous outcomes.
2.1 Rationale of the Study:
The rational of the study is can be understand by following questions:
Q1: What is the relation between the excessive usage of the social media with the
human nature?
Q2: What outcome one can have after having PSMU on their mental health?
The relationship between these factors with the every single outcomes make this
topic researchable, The aim to find out the factors, outcomes and the statistical
science for the PSMU will be an great piece of knowledge to gather about.
2.2 Objectives of the Study
To find out the relation between the problematic excessive usage of social
media and the outcome one adolescent can have?
To find out the mental disorders or malfunctioning one adolescent can have
after experience PSMU or SMUA.
2.3 Hypotheses:
H1: There is a relationship between social media usage and adolescents’ mental
health.
H2: There is a relationship between social media usage and adolescents’ body
image.
Chapter III
Method
3.1 Nature of Research:
The present research is quantitative in nature. The motive of using quantitative
research method is,
Can have better understanding about the relationship between two variables.
So we can precisely predict the relationship between two variables.
The progress of the scale development work carried out to determine the social
media addiction of the students and the characteristics of the working group are
presented below.
Development of Scale Form:
In order to establish a trial form for determining the social media addiction of
students, it was necessary firstly to create a conceptual framework by examining
the social media use and addiction research (Griffiths, 1995; Young, 2004; Şahin,
2011; Al-Menayes, 2015, Tutgun Unal & Deniz, 2015, Banya et al., 2015). In this
framework, a frame for the scope of the "Social Media Addiction Scale-Student
Form (SMAS-SF)" was determined in line with the information obtained from the
related literature and opinions of field experts, an item pool consisting of 29 items
was formed and a draft form was prepared. The scale includes 39 positive and 2
negative items. A 5-point grading is used in the scale: “(1) Definitely not
appropriate”, “(2) Not appropriate”, “(3) Undecided”, “(4) Appropriate” and “(5)
Quite appropriate”. The negative items are scored reversely. The collected data
were uploaded to SPSS 22.00 and LISREL 8.80 programs in order to conduct
statistically reliability and validity tests of the scale. Values for negative
expressions are inversely encoded when loading to the programs. Another scale
has been used for the measurements of Mental health of adults by the help of MHI-
5 scale. The scale consists of 5 interrelated items for which respondents need to
give appropriate answer according to 5 likert scale pool.
The Scoring of the Scale:
This is a 5-point Likert type scale which consists of 29 items and 4 sub-
dimensions. 1-5 items are within virtual tolerance sub dimension;6-14 items are
within virtual communication sub dimension, 15-23 items are under virtual
problem sub dimension and 24-29 items are under virtual information sub
dimension. All of the items in the scale are positive. The highest point that can be
scored from the scale is 145, and the least one is 29. The higher scores indicate that
agent perceives himself as a “social media addict”
3.3 Research Sampling strategies:
Study Group The study included students from 12 to 22 years of age who were
studying in different departments of a university as well as secondary and high
school students in the districts representing different socio-economic levels of a
city during the 2023-2024 academic year. The scale development process was
carried out with the participation of a total of 218 students. 98 (44.9%) female
students and 120 (55.0%) male students participated voluntarily. The participants
were determined by simple random sampling. The working group has been
considered to be "at least ten times the number of items" (Sönmez & Alacapınar,
2014). 56 students from secondary school, high school and university participated
in the first application in which explanatory factor analysis of the scale was
performed and 78 students participated in the second application in which
confirmatory factor analysis was performed. The test-retest method was used to
determine the consistency of the scale and the application was performed with the
participation of 218 members. The scale MHI-5 has been used for same ratio of
male and female respondents.
3.4 Sample:
The sample was based on quantitative analysis where a survey was conducted
through online Google form for 218 respondents. In this framework, a frame for
the scope of the "Social Media Addiction Scale-Student Form (SMAS-SF)" was
determined in line with the information obtained from the related literature and
opinions of field experts, an item pool consisting of 29 items was formed and a
draft form was prepared.
