A study carried out at Michigan State University (MSU) and published in the latest issue of Journal of Behavior Addictions has established “strong link” between excessive use of social media and impaired and risky decision-making and compared it with substance addiction. The study is the first of its kind to examine the relationship between social media use and risky decision-making capabilities. “Decision making is often compromised in individuals with substance use disorders. They sometimes fail to learn from their mistakes and continue down a path of negative outcomes,” Dar Meshi, an assistant professor at MSU in the US was quoted in a statement. “Our findings will hopefully motivate the field to take social media overuse seriously. However, no one previously looked at this behaviour as it relates to excessive social media users.” The study investigated possible parallel between excessive social media users and substance abusers. Researchers had 71 participants take a survey that measured their psychological dependence on Facebook, similar to addiction. Questions on the survey asked about users’ preoccupation with the platform, their feelings when unable to use it, attempts to quit and the impact that Facebook has had on their job or studies. Participants were then asked to take part in the Iowa Gambling Task, a method of assessing decision-making and risky behaviour widely used by psychologists. The researchers found that the worse people performed by choosing from bad decks, the more excessively they were likely to use social media. Those who did better at the task were less social media dependent. The results mirrored those from other studies showing that people who abuse heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine produce similar outcomes in the gambling task. “I believe that social media has tremendous benefits for individuals, but there’s also a dark side when people can’t pull themselves away. We need to better understand this drive so we can determine if excessive social media use should be considered an addiction,” said Meshi.
Excessive social media use like drug addiction: Study
