Social Media Addiction

Social media addiction is a huge, under covered issue the world is facing. Every day, thousands of teens spend hours on their phones, an average of seven hours a day, according to a report conducted by CNN. Teens, in general, want to be in the loop. Social networking and social media offer an unprecedented platform for this with instant gratification. So, why is social media so much more addicting than watching TV, YouTube, or movies? That’s because social media is specifically curated to fit your interests and the apps use special tactics to keep you hooked for hours on end.

Social media addiction affects peoples’ moods, behavior, personal problems and causes withdrawal symptoms when social media use is restricted or stopped in addition to relapse. The reason why social media is so addictive is that it induces dopamine. Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram cause the same neural circuitry that is produced by recreational drugs and gambling to keep consumers using their apps as much as possible, according to The Addiction Center. The constant stream of likes, retweets, and shares from these applications affect the brain’s reward center to cause the same chemical reaction as drugs like cocaine. The reward center and its chemical messenger pathways affect decisions and sensations, so when someone gets a “like” on Instagram for instance, neurons in the principal dopamine-producing sections of the brain are activated, which raises dopamine levels. This is the brain’s “reward” and it will then associate social media as a positive substance, that gives the consumer pleasure. The brain becomes addicted to this rise in dopamine and rewires itself making people crave likes, retweets, and emoticon responses.

App manufacturers intentionally keep you addicted to their apps. One tactic Instagram and Snapchat use is immediately showing the viewer the next “story” without the consumer doing anything. The user would have to intentionally stop this endless stream of information to stop viewing stories on both of these apps. Instagram and Snapchat also employ many, mostly unnecessary notifications. These can span from who started their first story on Instagram, to a notification reminding you to snap someone back. These notifications can seem invasive to our daily schedules and unnecessary to the apps’ purposes. All of the notifications Instagram uses (likes, comments, stories, mentions in comments) actually work. According to research from mobile analytics firm Urban Airship, “sending out weekly push notifications can double use retention on IOS devices and have a 6-fold increase on Android devices.” In addition, Instagram changed the color of its app from a vintage-looking light brown icon to a colorful, brightly-colored one. This change, whether intentionally to help market the app by adding to user addiction or not, no doubt did lead to heightened addiction. The bright colors used in the current icon are much more enticing than the old brown color Instagram had before. The new, bright icon is more noticeable, making viewers click on it more. In addition, the rings around account’s profiles are also this bright, multicolor which draws viewers in to watch their followers’ stories, and then the next one and the next (since Instagram automatically shows the next story up). Also, Instagram tactfully places accounts’ stories right at the top of the screen so it’s the very first thing you see when you go on the app.

Both Instagram and Twitter use the psychological trick, “variable ratio schedule.” this is when an action will be rewarded, but the viewer doesn’t know when, so they are waiting for it. Every time a user on Instagram or Twitter scrolls down on their “feed” page, a spinning wheel signifies that more content is being loaded. The viewer wants to be rewarded for this action of swiping and is in the hands of the app to get this reward. They are hoping for something new and interesting, and most of the time, they are rewarded which only fuels this addictive act. This is what slot machines do: a customer pulls a lever and they wait to win a small reward or the giant jackpot, or no reward at all. Twitter and Facebook apps are also blue, which is often considered a mentally calming color.

Snapchat also uses tactics to keep users engaged, such as the app’s bright yellow color and streaks. Streaks are numbers that show up that track how long you have been snapchatting someone every day. Streaks keep consumers snapping their friends to make sure they don’t lose their long-earned streaks that take days to acquire. Snapchat also rewards long streaks with different emojis next to the person with whom you have a streak.

In 2017, The Atlantic conducted an article on a 13-year-old girl who lives in Houston, Texas who recounted that she has spent most of the summer alone in her room with her phone. Pictures on Instagram and selfies on Snapchat have replaced real human connection and this is unsustainable. More social media consumption is directly related to teen depression and feelings of loneliness. One way to limit screen time is by setting time limits to social media apps and enabling a grey-screen, so one is not enticed by the bright colors of apps. Social media is supposed to connect people but instead makes people feel alone, especially when content excluding others is posted. In the future, let us try to be more conscious of how much time we as teens are spending on social media, and what type of impact that it is happening to not only ourselves but to others too.

Cites used: https://www.addictioncenter.com/drugs/social-media-addiction/

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-app-developers-keep-us-addicted-to-our-smartphones-2018-1#facebook-banks-on-its-position-as-one-of-the-worlds-most-used-apps-9

Writer: Claire Ottenstein

Editor: Meghana Nakkanti

Graphic Designer: Genevieve Chin