Running Head: Social network addiction

Social network addiction.

Roberto Solis Rayos
University of Texas at El Paso
Professor: Paul Hernandez
English 1302: Rhetoric And Composition.

Instructor: Professor Paul Hernandez

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Abstract
Social Network addiction is a latent problem since it began to appear in the web. Many
people things that this addiction doesnt exist and is something that wont affect them as a person
or as a working and functional individual in society. This document will discuss if the meaning
of addiction and how is related to over use of social networks. How social networks affects
college students, children and families. College students in two different countries , shocking
facts of social networks, and the development of a scale which measure the addiction of a person
to social networks.
Is social network addiction real?
Social network addiction is a problem that has been around since the beginning of the
first social website. This has been one of the most spoken topic in the media over the last 10
years, more and more people are aware of this problem thanks to media trough internet and
television. The dictionary defines addiction as the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice
or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, such as narcotics, to such an
extent that its cessation causes severe trauma. People that abuse deeply of anything to the point
that interfere the life of the individual probably have issues that is going to harm them for life in
more than one way. People involve in the psychology field have taken part in this huge problem
that is harming society as a whole with more than one person affected by it. The problem has
reach even people deeply inside this field of investigation as we can see in the following quote
it concerns me that, as a society, we are very cavalier tossing around the concept of addiction.

Instructor: Professor Paul Hernandez

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Addiction is a serious psychological diagnosis based on specific and seriously life-impairing

criteria.(Fabrris, 2012). This specifically states that addiction is a very serious problem that
modifies the routine or normal life of the affected person in a drastically way which may be
unrecognizable for people around them before the person have been affected by this addiction.
People have been more vulnerable for suffering this addiction because the way society
communicates its changing as well. Social networking has become not only a vehicle to
communicate but a reason to communicate and share personal thoughts and ideas, Fabbri states.
More and more technology is capable to facilitate this communication each day to make this
interaction easier trough time.

College students are also affected by this addiction.

A survey was run recently to test how college students manage the social networks
problems, this survey showed interesting data. The survey was run through 22 college students in
Mexico, Juarez city. 10% of the students use only one social network in their daily lifes, 54% of
the students are currently using two social networks a day, 10% use three through the day, and
finally 28% use four or more. 60% confected to have used a social network more than 10 times a
day, and the number goes when they were asked if they used any social media at work or school,
showing 72% in this question. Using more than 10 times any social media is categorized as an
addiction (Hormes 2014). Surprisingly only 50% of the students consider themselves as a
moderate users and only 20% as a super active user, none of them marked themselves as an
addict user. a surprising 68% uses various social networks for more than 5 years. These subjects

Instructor: Professor Paul Hernandez

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also where questioned by when was the last time you used a social network? in which 40% of
the students lied stating that they did not used any social network in more than 30 minutes. This
can safely have said that at the time they answered this survey was a lie, because this survey was
delivered and passed through Facebook and twitter and the other 40% where using any social
media while answering to the survey. By the other hand the same survey was provided to college
students at UTEP, a total of 26 students answered the survey. The results where different in more
than one aspect. 11% use only one social network, 30% two social networks, 26% three social
networks and finally 30% four or more social networks. Only 42% uses more than ten times a
day any social network which is a lower rate than the Mexican students. 92% of the college
students answered positive to the usage of social media while they work and attend to classes,
this is an astonishing number comparted to Mexican students. The dominance between social
networks in the students is a four-way tie between Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Snapchat.
Surprisingly 85% states that they can quit social networks at any time they wish to. These were
the results after a comparing and contrasting them, a clear difference in dependence of the social
network a clear difference can be appreciate for the American college students which use more
social network in their work and school time.
Shocking facts network addiction
To start strong this facts, there is an estimated 350 million social media users that suffer
Facebook addiction syndrome. the ages more vulnerable to get this syndrome are between 16-25
years which states that uses any social network more than 10 times a day. Each person uses their
time in a different way and in a different device for example 3 hours a day on average is spent
on social media for users age 15-19. Two full hours are spent interacting daily for users age 20Instructor: Professor Paul Hernandez

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29. The most popular place that users check their feeds are in bed with 66% of users doing so
while under the covers. 31% of adolescents freely admit to reading and writing on a social media
site while sitting on the toilet. 45% of users check their timeline while eating. 37 % of students
admitted that their social media updates were more interesting than a classroom lecture. 55% of
youth check their social media site on a mobile device versus a desktop or laptop. (Gaille 2013)
Different incomes signifies different types of preferences between the different social
networks, although this difference is huge in the lower income teenagers it narrows with the high
income splining almost evenly between the 4 social networks which are Facebook, instagram ,
snapchat and twitter. This graphs where gather at the end of 2015 most of the teenagers in this
research where between 13-18 years old which everyone had access to a mobile phone.
Genre also plays a role in social networks; women dominate visual-oriented social media
platforms as Instagram and snapchat. Meanwhile boys are more likely to play videogames with
their mobile devices and gaming consoles.

Instructor: Professor Paul Hernandez

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Development of a Facebook Addiction Scale

In 2012 Torbjrn Torsheim develop The Bergen facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS) a
scale with 18 items, three which reflects six core elements of addiction, salience, mood
modification , tolerance , conflict, and relapse, this experiment was administered to 423 students,
227 women and 196 male. This scale contains The Facebook attitude scale Which is how is
their behavior using specifically Facebook. The online sociability scale this is primarily related
in how the subjects interact with others, for example commenting in pictures or post. The active
tendencies scale This is a scale to measure what the subjects do more in the social networks,
most of the subject got high score in instant messages. The NEO-Five Factor Inventory this
scale is to identify the character of the subjects, for example, Neuroticism, extraversion,
Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. The BIS/BAS Scale This scale is the pursuit
of stimuli, for example the peruse of fun things to do, to lost time in. Sleep Questions these
where questions about the habits of the subjects about their bedtimes and at what times they
wake up in weekdays and weekends. With these Scales combined together the BFAS was
created, the results where astonishing women show a dependency in the social scale while the
male subjects showed a tendency in looking fun thing to do to waste time. (Torsheim 2012)

Instructor: Professor Paul Hernandez

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What is the Impact on Children, Adolescents and Families?

Children are involved as well in this addiction, although the addiction in children is in a
different way. Children around the world got addicted to Club Penguin this game was more
than just a simple game. In this platform kids could throw parties for their friends in their
virtual houses or even in special events inside the game, engaging the kids to this kinds of events
the company decide to make micro transactions for rare items which can only be obtained by
purchasing them with real money. Once one kid sees something they want they usually scream
for them and other tactics to get the item or whatever they want and if they dont get it what is
following by it is a form of depression, also they may get cyberbullied by other players because
they dont have this item and all the other people do. That will haunt them until they get the
wanted item. This may start psychological problems in their adolescence in wanted items, that
will eventually lead to family issues with fights, economically and socially trough other social
networks. The kids which this problem will only feel accepted by the online society and they
will only fell safe inside it. That will lead them to other fictional lives inside games for
example second life. Second life is the most addicting game and social network in the world this
is because in this world you can have your own space with your own rules. Many teenagers have
played this game at least ones or twice since its creation. In 2015 had over 1 million active users,
in this social game the user is welcome to do whatever they want to do which is appealing to
teenagers which feel that no one understands them and immerse to this world getting away from
real society and family. (American Pediatrics 2011)
Conclusion

Instructor: Professor Paul Hernandez

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Social network addiction is a very alive issue that is not going away any sooner or later,
from children to teenagers, to adults and whole societies. This social networks are good as bad,
and is affecting everyone lifes in one way or another. People get depress from not being
accepted in social networks, bullied and gets away from real society hiding themselves in
imaginary worlds where they can make their own rules like in second life. Or can be more
childish and try to be accepted in kids games as such as club penguin. Science tries to catch up to
these problems making more experiments to comprehend these problems. This experiments gives
the people more information about ourselves and other people about how they interact in social
networks. Every addiction changes the affected lives forever, and this one is not an expectation
of the rule, it changes the way people interact, react, socializes either making them more
aggressive or more introverted it result is different from person to person. Social network is
something than can be helpful or it can destroy peoples lives.

Instructor: Professor Paul Hernandez

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References
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Hormes, J. M., Kearns, B., & Timko, C. A. (2014). Craving Facebook? Behavioral addiction to
online social networking and its association with emotion regulation deficits. Addiction,
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Instructor: Professor Paul Hernandez