Title | Social Media Addiction in High School Students |
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Author | Allie Straeck |
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Running Head: SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION IN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS Social Media Addiction in High School Students Allie Straeck AP Research Lovejoy High School 15 April 2018 Total Word Count: 4,237 SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION IN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS 1 The curren...
Running Head: SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION IN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS Social Media Addiction in High School Students Allie Straeck AP Research Lovejoy High School 15 April 2018 Total Word Count: 4,237
SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION IN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS 1
The current generation of high school students are some of the first to grow up with social media as a constant part of their life. This could contribute to how addicted to social media students of today are. Social media addiction includes defining characteristics such as being concerned about social media, having a strong motivation to use social media, and to devote so much time to social media it impairs other activities, jobs, studies, relationships, and psychological health and wellbeing (Andreassen, 2015). A “recent metaanalysis determined that approximately 6% of the world's population have at least a base level of Internet addiction,” which includes social media since most people use the internet to browse social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter (Cecilia & Yeelam, 2014). The rise of different platforms, with innovative and more user friendly interfaces, only encourages the negative repercussions of social media and social media addiction, including low selfesteem, depression, anxiety, and the idolization of social media “icons” as role models (Valkenburg, Peter, & Schouten 2006). Not only are high school students’ psychological health at risk, but they are also more exposed to the threat of online predators who use these apps to find potential victims. In fact, “More than 82% of online sex crimes originating from social networking sites that predators use to gain insight into their victim’s habits and likes,” states Kids Live Safe, a website and book dedicated to educating parents about the dangers of social interactions online, especially with social media platforms (Kids Live Safe). The types of addiction receiving the most attention are alcoholism, gambling, and drugs; yet, these are not the only types of addiction people can have. Social media addiction has not gained as much recognition for being a serious disease, as a result individuals addicted to social media have little to no options for treatment offered. The lack of treatment or awareness
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programs results in social media addiction affecting more individuals and becoming more severe for those who are already addicted. With addiction to social media being relatively unknown or untreated, individuals addicted will only become more addicted and could experience the same predicament that alcoholics and drug addicts experience, including withdrawal from regular activities, dependency, anxiety from separation, and denial of the issue (Team, 2016). The purpose of the research in this study is to discover and analyze social media addiction, specifically in teenagers aged 1418 years old. Other purposes include really discovering how addicted students are to four main social media platforms and to analyze which app out of the four students are the most addicted to. Nations, such as China and South Korea, offer programs to help those who struggle with social media or internet addiction. However, the United States offers little to no help to those who are suffering which only allows the problem to manifest (Block, 2008). Technology is continuously evolving, paving the way for more social media platforms to be created and existing ones to become more prevalent. If the United States implements no treatment or remedy for social media addiction, the problem will only increase with time (Kuss & Griffiths, 2011). Most research over social media addiction has exclusively been about Facebook because it has had the most time to grow and develop, whereas other apps such as Instagram and Snapchat have only been released for a few years. Even though some apps may be older and more well known, adolescents are drawn toward the newer apps because of the “coolness” factor they have (Sheldon & Bryant, 2016). Adolescent preference for newer apps causes apps to become popular upon release and then fade in and out of popularity overtime. If applications
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remain popular for a long duration of time, such as Twitter, it could be an indicator of individuals being addicted to the platforms. Several studies tackle the issue of social media addiction as a whole without delving into particular apps, thus a researcher can not fully clarify which particular app the studied people were most addicted to. To help bridge this gap, the research in this study separates social media apps to gage the level of addiction high school students have to each major social media platform: Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. The separation of these apps allows researchers to understand which platforms are most addictive and perhaps what qualities make certain social media apps more addictive than others. Literature Review Previous research has been conducted concerning social media addiction and its connection to depression, stress, happiness, and also internet addiction, which is simply being addicted to all parts of the internet and in most studies included social media or a social networking site (Shensa et al, 2017; Longstreet & Brooks 2017). Different studies have analyzed social media addiction and depression with many types of people being studied, some of which include high school students, college students, adults, mentally ill patients, and people seeking social support by using a social media platform (Van den Eijnden et al, 2016; Hamer, Stamatakis, & Mishra, 2010; Brusilovskiy, Townley, Snethen, & Salzer, 2016; Cole, Nick, Zelkowitz, Roeder, & Roeder, 2016). One study in particular focuses on social media experience across different generations and compares the results among them, which allowed researchers to understand how different generations react to social media and the internet as a whole (Berezan, Krishen, Agarwal, & Kachroo, 2017). The study discovered the youngest generation used social
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media as a tool to define themselves and create their own identity, whereas the older generations use social media and the internet to meet new and interesting people without having a focus of figuring out their selfdefinition. With younger generations utilizing social media to define themselves, their online identity is intertwined with their social life off the internet. This can create younger generations to be partially reliant upon their social media accounts to establish their social status offline. Another subject similar to social media addiction is internet addiction, which is often paired or used unequivalently with social media addiction. For example, one study examined what purpose young adults used the internet and social media for and concluded the most common use was for online communication and socialization, which mostly pertains to how social media is used as a platform to connect with other people (Yusop & Sumari, 2013). Internet addiction is more prevalent in Asian countries due to the presence of a large computer based gaming community. In some cases, students have been skipping classes or even dropping out of high school to play videos games (Block, 2008). South Korea and China are experiencing significant internet addiction in younger generations and have acknowledged it as a growing problem in their nation. As a result of the severity of the addiction, there are treatment plans in place to help individuals cope with internet addiction. Whereas, the United States does not even formally recognize internet or social media addiction as a serious issue with younger generations. Block attributes this to the gaming being not as prevalent in the United States, however social media addiction exhibits many of the same characteristics that video game addiction does (Block, 2008). Thus, further research should be conducted evaluating the difference in
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internet/social media addiction among the three countries and how effective the different treatments, if any, are. Additional research has also been conducted regarding social media fatigue, which according to one study is “a user’s tendency to back away from social media participation when s/he becomes overwhelmed with information,” (Bright, Kleiser, & Grau, 2014) This is the opposite of social media addiction and should be considered a positive effect. However, this new idea is caused by overuse of social media, which is considered to be a negative effect because if students are overusing social media, they might not have enough time for other important activities including homework, studying, interacting with people facetoface, or spending time with family. These are all important activities adolescents need to help them flourish once they are independent adults due to life skills that are taught through these activities, such as communication skills, teamwork, time management, and the development of a strong work ethic. (Benson, Galbraith & Espeland, 1997). Contrary to what a majority of studies conclude about social media, not all aspects of social media are negative. Social media can be used to strengthen relationships among distant friends and relatives and can be a wealth of information, as it gives individuals increased access to information. Social medias has been used by separated families and friends to stay connected when they are apart from each other. Similarly, social media can be used to communicate with individuals who have terminal illnesses, mental conditions, and or mobility issues (Zhou, Zhang, Yang, & Wang, 2017). Families can stay connected with family members who are not able to interact with each other without having to meet at inopportune times. This encourages healthy relationships between family members and allows young adults to stay connected with friends,
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especially if they move school districts or continue their education at different colleges than their friends. Method of Gathering Data The most common method of gathering data in this field is an online survey; however, there have also been inperson surveys, interviews, as well as meta analyses (Longstreet, P., & Brooks, S., 2017, Radovic, A., Gmelin, T., Stein, B. D., & Miller, E., 2016, Przepiorka, A. M., Blachnio, A., Miziak, B., & Czuczwar, S. J., 2014). Surveys were used to collect information not only about social media addiction, but also items related to social media addiction, including self esteem, overall happiness, and reflective thought (Schneider et al, 2017; Berezan, Krishen, Agarwal, & Kachroo, 2017; Annisette & Lafreniere, 2016). These subjects can aid the researcher in evaluating social media addiction in the group of people being studied. Due to time restraint and MyAwesome High School’s Independent Review Board (IRB), additional surveys were not encouraged since the board decided they wanted their students to take a quick survey as opposed to one that could last for half an hour in order to not waste class time, as the survey was distributed to the whole school during one particular class period. Surveys are a common method of collecting data among most studies, however research has also been conducted on the validity of surveys. Inperson surveys are slightly better than online surveys simply because inperson the participant has to answer the questions. However, this survey method can also have problems with validity and user error, especially with low response rates (Wiersma, 2013). This can occur because people are often too busy to take the time to participate in an inperson survey. Another problem with surveys is people might not answer survey questions truthfully because they want to portray themselves as a better person
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than they may actually be. This combined with the Independent Review Board (IRB) not allowing incentivizing surveys can lead to problems within conducting the survey. The researcher gathering data in this paper selected a survey for collecting data because it allows for a larger sample size than the other aforementioned methods. The survey will be delivered to the student body to help ensure there is a large enough sample size in order to accurately analyze the survey results. The most appropriate method of discerning social media addiction in high school students would be to attach a tracking device to a certain number of students’ phones to log the exact amount of time they spend on each social media app and associating that data with their grades or amount of time spent socially interacting with people facetoface. This tracking method was conducted in a previous study (Giunchiglia, Zeni, Gobbi, Bignotti, & Bison, 2018) and found a correlation between active social media usage and lower grades. However, because of the technological limitations and ethical issues of using tracking devices, a survey was employed to gather information concerning social media addiction. The survey used to collect data was an adaptation of the Bergen Facebook Addiction scale created by researcher Cecilie Andreassen, Doctor of Psychology at the University of Bergen in Norway, the survey was created in 2011 and is a six question test designed to determine Facebook addiction in people of any age. These same six questions were used, however, instead of only questions about Facebook, questions were also asked about Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat (see appendix A for the complete list of questions) The answer choices for each question were the same and were based on the Likert scale ranging from “very often” to “very rarely” with a total of five different answers for each question. Each answer correlated to a numerical value, with “very often” correlating to the number five, “often” correlating to the number four, “sometimes”
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correlating to the number three, “rarely” correlating to the number two, and “very rarely” correlating to the number one. These numbers were then added together to create a final score for that section for each individual student. Student’s scores could range from 6 to 30, with the higher the value correlating to a higher level of addiction. Cecilie Andreassen, the original creator of the survey, determined if a participant taking the survey chose the answers “very often” or “often” four or more times, they would be a victim of social media addiction. Specifically this related to Facebook in her original research, however, the research in this paper asked questions with different apps in addition to Facebook to determine addiction. These answer choices added together correlate to the participant having an overall score of 16 to 20 and higher for the particular section. A score of 15 and below results in the student having no addiction, or very low addiction. These were the guidelines for scoring survey answers for the research in this paper. To prevent false answers or skewed data, a student who does not have an account for one or more of the four apps can check a box stating they do not have an account. If a student answered “no account” yet still completed the specified section, their answers were not counted and put in the “no account” category. Similarly, if students marked yes to having an account, they received a followup question asking how many accounts they have. If a student has two accounts but only uses one, they should respond stating they only have one account, since that is the one they not only use but could also be addicted to. This survey was distributed to every student at MyAwesome High School and received 338 responses. Other demographic information was collected including grade level and gender. The known demographic of MyAwesome High School is the students there come from predominantly white, affluent,
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suburban communities. The results could reflect a similar demographic in another location but the data could come across as skewed if it was projected onto a high school with a racially diverse or lower income student body. Method of Analyzing Data
A ChiSquare test of independence was used to determine if addiction score and type of social media are independent of each other. After completing the test it was determined type of social media and addiction score are not independent of each other since the chisquare score is 41.348 and the pvalue is 5.5x10 −9 with a degrees of freedom as 3. A two sample ttest was used to determine if the addiction scores for females is greater than the addiction scores for males. After completing the test it was determined with a t score of .52103 and a pvalue of .30378, the true mean score for females is greater than the true mean score for males. Results and Analysis The results of the survey were put into graphs with observed and expected counts in order to identify any gaps or noticeable differences in the data. The first graph correlates gender and the number of students addicted to social media with observed and expected values. The second graph correlated grade level and number of students addicted to social media and follows the same format as the previous graph.
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Table 1.1 The results from the survey discovered that between the two genders, females presented a higher observed level of addiction to all social media platforms than males with 108 observed counts above the males observed counts of 54 (table 1.1). Analyzing each app individually, females surpassed their expected values for Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook but remained below the expected count for Snapchat. The exact difference in the observed and expected counts were three for Twitter, one for Instagram, one for Facebook, and finally there was a five count difference for Snapchat. Contrastingly, male observed addiction counts were lower than expected for Twitter with a difference of three, Instagram with a difference of one, and Facebook with a difference of one. However, the results revealed a higher observed than expected count for Snapchat by five counts. The gap in gender results could be because females often idolize models seen online and compare themselves, particularly in physical appearance. “Females [also] tend to turn to others for validation in contrast to males, who are more apt to maintain their individuality and whose relationships are more of an extension of their already complete selves” (Wiederhold & Riva,
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2009). Social media can exploit females need for reassurance while discovering their self identity which in turn can cause impressionable young females to be addicted to these social media platforms where they are receiving the necessary “likes” and “followers” to support this identity.
Table 1.2
By simply glancing at Table 1.2 it is obvious there are more students addicted to Snapchat than any other platform and there are very few, if any, students addicted to Facebook. A total of 110 students conveyed addictive scores for Snapchat and a total of three students conveyed addictive scores for Facebook with a startling 107 difference between the two observed scores. By analyzing each app and grade level individually, the results from the survey can further inform researchers how addicted high school students are to Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook for this demographic of students. Twitter specifically aquired lower observed...