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Category: Addiction News

  • Narcan Administered At Record Pace In Boston

    Narcan Administered At Record Pace In Boston

    New city stats reveal that there were over 3,000 “narcotic-related illness” ambulance trips in 2017.

    In 2017, Boston’s first responders ran thousands of ambulance trips and administered Narcan for opioid overdoses in record numbers.

    New statistics revealed that Boston not only has a rising opioid epidemic in its own population, but that opioid use in the visiting population has risen alarmingly.

    According to the Boston Herald, Boston Emergency Medical Statistics revealed 3,557 “narcotic-related illness” ambulance trips to city hospitals in 2017—up from 2,848 in 2016.

    Twenty-nine percent of Boston’s narcotic-related ambulance trips were for patients who reported living outside Boston, EMS numbers show; this is a staggering 58% jump over 2016.

    Police and medical experts warn that 2018 could be just as bad with no signs that the drug epidemic is letting up. Boston police think it could be cheap heroin luring people with addiction to use in Boston.

    State police spokesman Dave Procopio told The Boston Herald that the drug fentanyl is increasingly laced into heroin to increase dealers’ profits.

    “Some users are actually seeking out fentanyl because it’s more potent,” said Procopio. He noted that the State Police Detective Unit for Suffolk County reported that a majority of current overdoses involved fentanyl.

    The Fix reported that some medical experts are seeking another avenue for reviving patients who have ingested fentanyl. The drug is so powerful that Narcan often does not work effectively.

    “Compounds like fentanyl, carfentanil, and other synthetic opioids act for longer periods of time,” said Dr. Roger Crystal, CEO of Opiant. “The concern is that naloxone’s half-life doesn’t provide sufficient cover to prevailing amounts of fentanyl in the blood.”

    Patients who overdosed with fentanyl in their system often have to receive multiple injections of Narcan over a period of time to be revived.

    Dr. Paul Biddinger, director of the Emergency Department at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, told The Boston Herald of the increasing number of Boston overdoses. “We don’t know what the cause is. The cost? Fentanyl? Unfortunately, it’s not going away for a while,” he said.

    The city of Boston reported that funds acquired to address the opioid epidemic are going to be put to use in the Boston Post-Overdose Response Team, or PORT. The program will be expanded and its hours increased.

    Paul Biddinger encourages “families, loved ones, even bystanders” to obtain and learn to use Narcan to save overdose victims.

    Of course treatment is necessary for recovery, but Narcan saves the person’s life so that they are here to participate in that recovery, he says.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Can Severe ADHD Predict Video Game Addiction?

    Can Severe ADHD Predict Video Game Addiction?

    A new study explored whether there was a connection between ADHD and video game addiction.

    While debate continues to swirl about the validity of video game dependency, a new study has opined that individuals with severe symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may also be more prone to develop an equally severe dependency on video games.

    The study profiled gamers, types of games, and amount of time spent playing games, and found that while a small percentage of respondents had ADHD symptoms, those individuals also exhibited tendencies toward more problematic behavior during play and longer periods of game play.

    Though the study size and actual number of participants with ADHD were limited, the study authors concluded that gamers with ADHD symptoms may want to look into the risks of excessive video game play.

    The study, conducted by researchers from Loma Linda University and published in the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, was culled from an online survey of 2,801 video game players taken between December 2013 and July 2014. The participants ranged in age from 18 to 57, with an average age of 22 and 4.3 months; 93.3% were male and 82.8% were Caucasian.

    After factoring the age and gender of each participant, the researchers also measured the responses by types of game and time per week spent gaming, and used the Conners’ Adult ADHD Rating Scales, which measure the presence and degree of ADHD symptoms to determine severity of ADHD, if applicable.

    Their analysis found that only 157, or 5.6% of respondents had what could be described as clinically significant ADHD symptoms.

    Upon analyzing those participants’ conclusions, the study authors suggested that in regard to type of game and length of time devoted to play, the severity of ADHD symptoms were linked to severity of video game dependency. They also put forth the notion that younger players could be at greater risk to develop more problems with video game play than older players. 

    The authors also acknowledged that several factors posed limitations to the study’s conclusions, including the relatively small sample size number of participants with diagnosable ADHD. Lack of female participants, which accounted for only 6.7% of respondents, also posed limitations on the study’s findings.

    Despite these limitations, the study authors did suggest that “individuals who report ADHD symptomatology and also identify as gamers may benefit from psychoeducation about the potential risk for problematic play.”

    Take a look at these safer natural alternatives to adderall for ADHD symptom management.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Oklahoma Public Schools Increase Drug Testing For Students

    Oklahoma Public Schools Increase Drug Testing For Students

    The decision comes on the heels of the state’s voters passing a measure to legalize medical marijuana.

    A public school district in Oklahoma will double the number of students that will be required to undergo random drug testing in the coming school year.

    The move comes on the heels of a recent decision by state voters to pass a measure that allows for legal use of medical marijuana without a qualifying condition, but Bret Towne, superintendent for Edmond Public Schools, said that the increase was “coincidental” with the bill’s passage.

    According to coverage by High Times, more than 700 of the 3,000 students in the district who participate in extracurricular activities will be randomly tested for drugs this year.

    Random drug testing for students in Edmond Public Schools, which has been conducted largely among students in extracurricular activities for the past six years, was reduced two years ago after funding for the district was subjected to cuts. But at a meeting on July 2, the Edmond school board voted to return to previous testing levels, which is the number of students they are legally allowed to test.

    According to Towne, the board’s decision was not directly influenced by the passage of SQ 788, which allows patients to use marijuana for medical purposes after obtaining a recommendation from a qualified physician.

    Unlike most medical marijuana measures, SQ 788 requires no pre-existing health conditions to qualify for the medical marijuana program, and according to Towne, that element was cause for alarm among some parents. 

    “My concern is how it’s going to affect students on campus and the availability [of medical marijuana],” he told Oklahoma’s KFOR News. “We always worry about students having easier access to it.”

    But while the decision to increase the number of tests was a simple matter of voting, deciding how the school district will handle the issue on a broad scale will require more debate.

    As High Times noted, SQ 788 allows anyone 18 years or older to use the drug with a doctor’s recommendation, and grants permission to minors aged 16 to 17 to use medical cannabis as long as they have recommendations from two doctors.

    According to Towne, he’ll wait to see how the Oklahoma Department of Health will rule in regard to medical marijuana use on campuses, and then meet with state school board officials to consider revisions to their current policy. Currently, prescription medication are held and distributed to students by a school secretary. 

    But as Towne said, applying that policy to medical marijuana is “a little bit different situation [sic].”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Is Social Media As Addictive As Cocaine?

    Is Social Media As Addictive As Cocaine?

    One expert suggests that media-stoked fears about addictive technology only serve to divert attention from pressing problems like online privacy and user consent.

    Following a recent spate of headlines likening social media to hard drugs, some psychologists deny they’re similar at all. According to Business Insider, scientists from the Oxford Internet Institute believe it’s not only irresponsible to compare the two, but doing so actually distracts from far more serious problems plaguing the tech world.

    The media, though, makes it difficult to separate founded fears from the unfounded ones. The BBC recently reported that social media companies were actively addicting their users through a variety of psychological techniques—an alarming claim that, if true, makes social media addiction more controversial than it already is.

    “It’s as if they’re taking behavioral cocaine and just sprinkling it all over your interface and that’s the thing that keeps you coming back and back and back,” Aza Raskin, a former Mozilla engineer, said of the industry. “Behind every screen on your phone, there are generally like literally a thousand engineers that have worked on this thing to try to make it maximally addicting.” 

    Raskin says that he’s the one who conceived of “infinite scrolling,” where users endlessly swipe down through online content (think Instagram) without ever having to click anywhere. It’s a trick that keeps people glued to their devices, Raskin told the BBC, as it prevents a user’s brain to “catch up” with their impulses.

    Andrew Przybylski, however, doesn’t believe that Silicon Valley’s engineers can successfully incorporate psychology into any of their social media designs. Przybylski, the Oxford Internet Institute’s director, balked at the BBC story and labeled Raskin’s research as “very sloppily done.”

    He added that if Raskin “actually knew anything” about the psychology behind addictive technology, the much-reported dangers of social media would be frighteningly accurate.

    A number of stories continue to portray digital screens no differently than addictive chemicals. And while there is evidence that the brain releases dopamine when people check their Facebook account, Przybylski insists that it’s not remotely the same thing as getting high from a drug.

    “Dopamine research itself shows that things like video games and technologies, they’re in the same realm as food and sex and learning and all of these everyday behaviors,” he told Business Insider, “whereas things like cocaine, really you’re talking about 10, 15 times higher levels of free-flowing dopamine in the brain.”

    Przybylski suggests that media-stoked fears about addictive technology only serve to divert attention from pressing problems like online privacy and user consent. They also distract from the most important objective: good research.

    Przybylski is skeptical that enough research data exists in the first place, let alone social media companies regularly using it in their work.

    “The main takeaway here is that we don’t actually know these things,” said Przybylski, calling for more collaboration with research. “It is important for these large companies to share their data with researchers, and share their data with the public. This research needs to be done transparently. It can’t just be a bunch of Cambridge Analyticas and one-on-one relationships between social media companies and researchers.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Iggy Azalea On Demi Lovato’s Relapse: "To Be Honest With The World Is Admirable"

    Iggy Azalea On Demi Lovato’s Relapse: "To Be Honest With The World Is Admirable"

    “I had known about it, as a close friend. So I had really wanted for her to be the one to tell people about that, and I worried a lot…”

    Australian rapper Iggy Azalea is proud of her friend and fellow artist Demi Lovato for the way she “owned up” to a relapse after six years of sobriety. 

    “I had known about it, as a close friend. So I had really wanted for her to be the one to tell people about that, and I worried a lot… that something was going to leak or somebody would take that and use it negatively against her, or to make her seem like she’s got a secret,” Azalea told Entertainment Tonight ahead of a July 22 show where the two artists will perform together at the California Mid-State Fair.

    Earlier this year, Azalea had said that Lovato’s tireless advocacy for mental health awareness had made her more open to receiving help at a time when she was “mentally exhausted.”

    Lovato, who has shared every step of her recovery with the world for the last six years, released a candid confession via song last month called “Sober,” revealing that she had relapsed after six years.

    “I don’t know why I do it every time/ It’s only when I’m lonely/ Sometimes I just wanna cave/ And I don’t wanna fight,” she sings. “To the ones who never left me we’ve been down this road before/ I’m so sorry, I’m not sober anymore.”

    While worried for her friend, Azalea was pleasantly surprised by how Lovato handled the situation. “I didn’t know that she was recording that song,” she told ET. “I was just really proud of her that she was honest, because it’s really hard to be honest with yourself. So, to be honest with the whole world, [to share] something that you struggled with very publicly, it’s something that is very admirable.”

    In some recovery communities, a relapse is no longer a mark of shame or failure, but rather, a part of the process of recovery and growth. Lovato herself has been a tireless advocate for mental health and recovery support, working to erase the shame and stigma surrounding mental illness and substance abuse.

    She’s shared every part of her recovery including her rock bottom and her struggle with bipolar disorder, and admits when she’s feeling vulnerable.

    Her recent confession is just another part of her journey.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • 5 Tips For Staying Sober In College

    5 Tips For Staying Sober In College

    At the end of the day, the college experience is about so much more than just alcohol.

    For most people, college is not associated with sobriety.

    Such was the case for me during the first two years I spent away from home. I drank often and partied hard, convincing myself that it was normal. I liked to be the one outdoing everyone else, thought there was some badge of honor I could earn by doing so. And honestly, I had a blast—until I didn’t. I didn’t realize this right away, but I drank differently than my peers. While they knew how and when to stop, I didn’t. I all too often crossed from having fun to being a sloppy, drunk mess, saying and doing things I regretted come morning light.

    It all came to a head at the end of my sophomore year, when I ended up hospitalized with a .34 blood alcohol content. My parents gave me an ultimatum: get sober, or I wasn’t allowed back home for the summer. I went along with getting sober, never planning for it to actually be something I stuck with. I wasn’t even 21 and was still in college. Who got sober in college? I didn’t know of anyone, and I didn’t intend to be that person.

    But as time passed and I refrained from drinking, I realized that I felt good, both physically and emotionally. I liked being in control of my actions, knowing what happened the night before. It felt freeing. So, I ran with the whole sobriety thing, staying sober my junior and senior year of college, and now, for the three years following college.

    I won’t lie, maintaining a social life while being sober in college wasn’t easy. In fact, at times it was one of the hardest things I’ve done. But it is possible. Along the way I discovered a number of tricks that helped remind me why I was sober and made it easier to stay that way. Here are a few:

    1. Be honest with the people close to you. Sobriety isn’t easy. But it’s even harder when you try to do it alone. It’s understandable that telling people about your decision to stop drinking is scary. It’s not something very many people choose to be open about, especially in college. But if you can, pick two or three people you are close to and tell them the truth. Tell them why you decided to get sober and why it’s important to you to maintain that sobriety. If they ask how they can help, tell them. Express what you need, what makes you feel supported. They wouldn’t ask if they didn’t genuinely care and want to do what is best for you. Give people the chance to surprise you with their support, because they often will.
    1. Make self-care a priority. It’s easy to let self-care fall to the side in college. You get so busy with classes, with friends, with study groups, with sports, that you forget to take time for yourself. This is always important, but even more so when you are sober. In sobriety, you need to know when and how to take time for yourself. This means different things for different people. For one person, it may be a bubble bath and reading a book for fun. For another, it could be working out, or journaling, or attending 12-step meetings. Whatever the case, make sure you identify what it is you need and make it a priority in your schedule.
    1. Remind yourself you won’t be hungover come morning. For some reason, this was always a powerful tool for me. Just knowing how physically awful hangovers felt and how unproductive they made me for the entire next day was usually enough to quell any desire for a drink. When I first got sober, someone told me hangovers are actually a form of withdrawals from alcohol, which is why mine had been getting progressively worse. Reminding myself that the morning would be clear and I would be able to be productive and reach my full potential always brought me back to reality when I found myself wishing I could drink with my college friends.
    1. Connect with sober peers. Though it’s somewhat unlikely you will find these people in college, it’s not impossible. But if you don’t, there are other options. Because I went to a semi-small college, there were no other people my age who had gotten sober. But by going to some 12-step meetings and joining online communities, I was able to connect with people who shared my experiences and who were in situations similar to mine. Having that connection with others in recovery is vital in moments when you need support and understanding, or even need someone to tell you it just isn’t worth it to pick up a drink.
    1. Remember that the main reason for college is to receive an education—an expensive one, at that. This may sound odd, but for some reason it really helped me when I was wishing I could have a “normal” college experience and drink with my friends. I found it helpful to remind myself that first and foremost I was at college to get an education so I could pursue the career I wanted to pursue. College is not a cheap investment by any means. If I had continued to drink at the rate I had been, I likely would have wasted a good amount of money and not received the quality education I had hoped to attain at the college I chose. But today, I can say I got the most out of my education (the last two years of it at least) because I was fully present and invested.

    At the end of the day, the college experience is about so much more than just alcohol. Sure, at times this may be hard to remember. There will be days when it may seem like everyone around you is drinking or talking about drinking. It’s easy to feel left out, like you’re missing out on a college rite of passage. But that’s not true. These are the days it’s important to remind yourself why you set out to live a sober life and why it’s important for you to continue to do so.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Opioid Crisis In The 1800s Shares Similar Roots With Today's Epidemic

    Opioid Crisis In The 1800s Shares Similar Roots With Today's Epidemic

    Just as modern doctors began using opioids to treat a variety of pain, doctors more than 100 years ago used morphine in the same way, exposing more people to the drug. 

    Aggressive advertising touting the benefits of medications, quick fixes offered by new-found wonder drugs and doctors who didn’t realize the dangers of the medications they were prescribing sound a lot like all the pieces that led to today’s opioid epidemic. However, these are a few of the causes of opioid addiction that spiked in the United States in the late 1800s, according to a report in Smithsonian.

    At the time morphine was a new medication and doctors and patients were equally enamored with it. The drug became an ingredient in everything from teething serums to constipation cures, and by 1889, Boston physician James Adams estimated that about 150,000 Americans were “medical addicts,” addicted to prescription drugs rather than opium that could be smoked. 

    Just as modern doctors began using opioids to treat all types of pain, doctors more than 100 years ago used morphine to treat a variety of ailments, exposing more people to the drug. 

    Morphine became “a magic wand [doctors] could wave to make painful symptoms temporarily go away,” said David Courtwright, a historian of drug use and policy at the University of North Florida and author of the book Dark Paradise: A History of Opiate Addiction in America. “It’s clear that that was the primary driver of the epidemic.”

    One reason for the popularity of morphine among doctors and patients was aggressive advertising. An ad for Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup for Teething Children, which contained morphine, declared the product was “The mother’s friend.”

    Most Victorians didn’t realize that the medications, which were not regulated at the time, contained potentially dangerous ingredients. When these medications were found to be effective treatment, they became increasingly popular. 

    “If buyers took a spoonful because they had, say, a case of the runs, the medicine probably worked,” Courtwright said. 

    Eventually, doctors began to realize that the heavy use of medications containing opioids was unhealthy and leading to addiction. 

    “By 1900, doctors had been thoroughly warned and younger, more recently trained doctors were creating fewer addicts than those trained in the mid-nineteenth century,” Courtwright wrote in a 2015 paper for The New England Journal of Medicine.

    Government regulation also played a part and regulating the crisis, Courtwright wrote. Medical experts, led by Adams, began pressuring their colleagues to move away from opioids, and states began to regulate narcotic use. This led to a sharp reduction in opioid prescriptions.

    For example, in 1888, 14.5% of prescriptions filled in Boston drugstores contained opiates, but by 1908, only 3.6% of prescriptions filled in California contained the drugs. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Using Smartwatches As Harm Reduction Is Misguided, Expert Says

    Using Smartwatches As Harm Reduction Is Misguided, Expert Says

    “If someone says, ‘Let’s do a line,’ I’ll look at my watch. If I see I’m at 150 of 160, I’ll say, ‘I’m good.’ That’s totally fine. Nobody gives you a hard time,” said one man.

    Can a Fitbit or Apple Watch keep you safe while you use drugs? That’s the idea presented by some people, according to CNBC.

    “If someone says, ‘Let’s do a line,’ I’ll look at my watch. If I see I’m at 150 of 160, I’ll say, ‘I’m good.’ That’s totally fine. Nobody gives you a hard time,” said one individual called “Owen,” a tech worker in San Francisco.

    It’s his way of being safe and not overdoing it, he tells CNBC. He’ll check his Fitbit at parties, nightclubs, even Burning Man. And if his heart rate gets too high, he’ll slow down.

    “I don’t really know what’s happening in my body when I smoke some weed or do some cocaine. I can read information online, but that’s not specific to me. Watching your heart rate change on the Fitbit while doing cocaine is super real data that you’re getting about yourself,” said Owen.

    According to CNBC, there are “dozens” of accounts of this activity across social media and Reddit forums.

    One Redditor posted snapshots of her heart rate data via her Fitbit. “Sometimes I go for 3 days straight if I have an 8-ball to myself,” she wrote, according to Mashable. “And yes, I do all that with no sleep whatsoever until all the coke is gone. I wear a Fitbit Charge HR and it’s been fascinating seeing my heart rate during these coke binges.”

    However, one medical expert was not impressed with this approach, instead painting it as misguided. “Taking drugs is always a risk, whether you’re monitoring a tracker or not,” said Ethan Weiss, a cardiologist and associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco.

    He says this use of smartwatch devices is hardly a foolproof harm reduction measure, even going so far as to suggest that “it’s possible this is leading people to do more cocaine.”

    Devices like the Fitbit and Apple Watch are only getting “smarter.” A team at the University of Rhode Island is working on developing software that would allow a person’s vital signs to be measured via a smartwatch. The idea is to make this information available to doctors, who may then adjust the patient’s medication or treatment regimen. 

    Perhaps this will catch on with “tech-savvy” drug users as well.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "Eighth Grade" Star Elsie Fisher Discusses Social Anxiety

    "Eighth Grade" Star Elsie Fisher Discusses Social Anxiety

    The 15-year-old actress said the script for her new movie helped her better understand her own social anxiety.

    Eighth Grade is an acclaimed new film directed by comedian Bo Burnham, starring Elsie Fisher as an introverted girl trying to make her way through her last year of junior high.

    As it turns out, Fisher was able to bring a lot to the role considering her own adolescence was an anxious and awkward time.

    Fisher grew up in a well-to-do suburb, Thousand Oaks, California, and had a tough time navigating middle school. As she told Mic, she was dealing with social anxiety, and thought her experience “was very, very unique, but not in a good way. I’m like, ‘I’m the only person who feels weird and quiet and bleh.’”

    Then once she read the script for Eighth Grade, she realized, “Oh, everyone feels weird and quiet and bleh.” Like her character in Eighth Grade, Fisher also had to learn how to navigate the digital world, like every other teen in today’s day and age.

    “I think the biggest thing the movie did for me in terms of social media and the internet as a whole is just make me think about it more. I feel like a lot of people don’t think about the internet. It’s just part of the air they breathe. It’s very addictive, and you don’t often think about your addictions.”

    Once she read the script, Fisher felt that Burnham captured an awkward teen with social anxiety well.

    “I truly saw it as him writing a person who felt the same things as him, just in different circumstances,” she said. “He’s one of the few people I’ve met who really understands my level of anxiety, because he shares that.”

    The trailer for Eighth Grade shows a lot of young people escaping into their own iPhone worlds. Growing up in the age of the internet “makes everyone more self-aware,” Fisher says. “And it’s affecting young children’s brain chemistry. Because our brains are still developing, we’re the most susceptible to things that mess with them. And that includes things like drugs and alcohol and the internet. You shorten your attention span and increase your need for information and approval.”

    As Burnham told The Crimson, in today’s digital pre-teen and teen worlds, “We’re hyperconnected and we’re lonely. We’re overstimulated and we’re numb.”

    Fisher also feels that in today’s world, “There’s just a lot of disconnect from adults to teens. And I just think both sides need to be more empathetic towards each other. On the adult side, understand there’s a context for why the teen is on their phone. It’s because they don’t want to live in this weird world, [this] eighth-grade phase that America is going through. Teens aren’t self-obsessed because they want to be or because they’re narcissistic. It’s because that’s how we’re being raised, and that’s how you’re judged, based on your appearance online.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • How much is too much social media?

    How much is too much social media?

    How much is too much social media?

    Out of all the types of digital addiction we try to raise awareness of at Time to Log Off, perhaps the most relatable for many young people, is social media addiction. We live in the age of scrolling after all; whether that’s through an idol’s Instagram, or through an argument on Twitter. In fact, you might argue that because social media use is so high in general across the UK, that many people might not even realise they have a problem. However, multiple studies have found a strong correlation between social media use and issues with self-confidence, anxiety and stress. We’re now asking ourselves the million-dollar question – how much social media is too much social media?

    The current concern over social media usage

    You only have to search for ‘social media’ in Google’s news section, to find how relevant an issue it is, and the concern that it is causing. Very recently, health officials in the UK have come out urging companies such as Facebook to do more to protect children from the risk of social media addiction. This is an interesting parallel to the fact that in a recent BBC Panorama programme, insiders revealed that some Facebook features were designed to keep users on the platform, despite knowing the risk to young people this would cause.

    As Instagram is owned by Facebook, it’s perhaps not a surprise that they are taking it into their own hands and trying to paint themselves in a favourable light. In a similar vein to Apple recently launching software to curb mobile phone addiction, Instagram have alerted users to the issues their own app might cause, by adding a feature that tells users when they are “all caught up”. The self-awareness of Instagram is supported by the fact the CEO announced the tool by saying; “understanding how time online impacts people is important, and it’s the responsibility of all companies to be honest about this”.

    So with health officials and tech companies alike becoming aware of the dangers of social media, is there a one-size-fits-all threshold? Can we put a number on the question of how much social media use is too much social media?

    Average social media use per day

    According to Statista, in 2017 the average daily usage of social media worldwide was 135 minutes. This number has only been rising annually since 2012, when it was 90 minutes. That’s a 50% increase in five years, which is significant. If you asked someone how long they think they spend on social media, they would probably say a whole lot less than 135 minutes a day. They wouldn’t be lying, they just wouldn’t be aware of just how long we all now spend scrolling in 2018.

    How much is too much social media?

    It’s a difficult question to answer, and it doesn’t appear that there’s one answer that would fit all. There are a number of apps that help you track usage, so one useful exercise may be to measure yourself against the average, as cited by Statista. However, this doesn’t account for the fact that one person may just spend an hour a day on social media, but that single hour might have far more of a impact on their self esteem and mental health, than someone who might be spending over the average.

    A more useful task might be identifying unhelpful behaviours. To be defined as an addiction, social media has to be something that an individual is psychologically reliant on, and this can be defined by behaviour. You can look at specific apps for example, and consider if behaviour using them might be potentially damaging. For example, on Instagram, do you remove a photo if it doesn’t have a certain amount of likes – and alongside this, is your self esteem is low? Or on Twitter, do you find yourself refreshing your feed every few minutes, and also becoming unhealthily involved in online arguments?

    At the end of the day, asking the question of yourself of whether social media usage is too much, is reliant on self-examination. Time alone doesn’t define what’s healthy, but what you’re doing online, and if you’re experiencing increasingly negative feelings when using social media, is. Being self-aware is crucial in understanding how much social media is too much for you.

    View the original article at itstimetologoff.com