Answer Addiction

Tag: social media addiction

  • "Screenagers" Doc Explores Teens' Relationship With Tech, Mental Health

    "Screenagers" Doc Explores Teens' Relationship With Tech, Mental Health

    Screenagers: Next Chapter zeroes in on how adults can aid teenagers when it comes to mental health.

    Screens and teens: the combo has been discussed in-depth in recent years, and now a new documentary called Screenagers: Next Chapter is diving in even more deeply.

    According to The Washington Post, the film is a follow-up to the 2016 documentary Screenagers: Growing Up in the Digital Age, by filmmaker and physician Delaney Ruston. 

    Screenagers: Next Chapter zeroes in on how adults can aid teenagers when it comes to mental health challenges. The documentary, which is being screened around the country, focuses on stress resilience, or the ability to cope with stressful emotions. 

    The Screenagers website states that the documentary “takes a deeply personal approach as [Ruston] probes into the vulnerable corners of family life, including her own, to explore struggles over social media, video games, academics and internet addiction.”

    Ruston’s interest in the topic stems from her own daughter’s struggle with depression. 

    “I had no idea when to step in, what to say, and often it felt like anything I said made it worse,” she told Good Morning America. “It felt like I was just tiptoeing. If I say the wrong thing, it’ll make her never talk to me again. It’s emotional just thinking about it, just how stuck I was.”

    According to the Post, lower levels of stress resilience are associated with “mood disorders and conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.”

    However, when teens learn to feel their emotions and then regulate them, they are more likely to move past such conditions. 

    Communication Is Key

    Educational psychologists Staci M. Zolkoski and Lyndal M. Bullock note that adults can assist adolescents in these circumstances by expressing care and teaching them how to communicate effectively.  

    Tessa, Ruston’s daughter, says this approach from her parents was helpful. 

    “Some of the things my parents said that really helped in the moments of hardship were, you’re doing the best you can for where you’re at and what tools you have, especially when I felt really low and incapable,” she told GMA. “My favorite quote that my dad said that actually really got me through the hard times that felt like forever is ‘This too shall pass.’”

    In Screenagers: Next Chapter, Ruston talks with various researchers about how adults can help increase resilience in young people. One such researcher, Jessica Borelli from the University of California at Irvine, says sometimes parents’ attempts at intervening can actually be a negative. Psychologist Laura Kastner adds that rather than intervene in their child’s emotions, adults should learn to validate those emotions. 

    “It’s not approval, it’s not agreement—it’s seeing it from their perspective and accepting their feelings exactly the way they are, without trying to mess with them,” Kastner said. 

    When parents intervene, Ruston notes, it can affect a child’s ability to increase their resilience and learn how to cope on their own. 

    Screenings of Screenagers: Next Chapter, can be found at screenagersmovie.com.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • South Korea Facing Digital Addiction Crisis

    South Korea Facing Digital Addiction Crisis

    Almost 10 million people in South Korea are at serious risk of digital addiction.

    Experts say that South Korea is facing a public health crisis, with nearly 20% of the population (almost 10 million people) at serious risk of Internet addiction, NPR reports. And they say the United States could be in trouble, too, if we are not proactive.

    NPR focused on problematic Internet usage in South Korea, but countries like Japan, Switzerland and Brazil are also contending with rising numbers of internet “addicts.”

    In May, the World Health Organization added “gaming disorder” to its International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), defining the condition as having impaired control over gaming, giving increasing priority to gaming over other activities, and doing so despite the negative consequences.

    Firsthand Account

    NPR interviewed Sungwon Roh, a psychiatrist at Hanyang University in Seoul, who sees firsthand the effects of gaming or Internet use disorder in South Korea.

    “Here I see dramatic cases of both adolescents and adults come to seek professional help because they started to have serious problems in their health, relationships with their family or studies at school from game addiction,” said Roh. “Some students will refuse to go to school or even inflict physical force on their parents.”

    Facilities like the National Center for Youth Internet Addiction Treatment give South Koreans, many of them teenagers, a place to separate from electronic devices and engage in other activities like board games, art class and volunteering.

    “We help students find a new hobby. Students who are overly dependent on Internet and smartphones will be doing only that [using their phones] when they have extra time. So, we are showing them many other options so they can spend their free time in a healthier way,” said Yong-chool Shim, director of the National Center.

    Treatment Programs

    Teenagers who arrive at the National Center for Youth Internet Addiction Treatment go device-free from the day they arrive and for the remainder of the 2-4 week program.

    “My hands get shaky, I can’t concentrate. When I go back to the dormitory to get some rest, I keep thinking of Facebook,” said one 14-year-old girl at the National Center.

    Another girl, 16, had better luck with digital detox. At first she told NPR, “I’ve had my phone since my first year in elementary school, I’ve never been without it since. So I was worried.” But five days in, she said she was feeling more comfortable being without her phone.

    Shim says the problem in South Korea is only growing, and more facilities are opening to accommodate the demand.

    “The percentage of teenagers dependent on Internet and smartphones is actually increasing,” said Shim. “So, our organization is expanding and trying to get ready to accept more students.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Goodbye Autoplay: New Bill Aims To Curb Social Media Addiction

    Goodbye Autoplay: New Bill Aims To Curb Social Media Addiction

    The bill aims to ban potentially addictive features such as the “infinite scroll” and “autoplay.”

    Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri recently introduced a bill that’s meant to address social media features that he believes are designed to make the platforms addictive.

    The bill, named the Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology (SMART) Act, would ban established features of the most popular social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Snapchat, claiming that these features “exploit human psychology or brain physiology to substantially impede freedom of choice.”

    Infinite Scoll & Autoplay

    Features targeted in this bill include the “infinite scroll” that has been part of Facebook and Twitter for years and which continuously loads new content as the user scrolls down, as well as YouTube’s “autoplay” that loads a new video as soon as one has finished. Additionally, it addresses Snapchat’s “streaks” that rewards users for sending more and more photos to their friends in a row.

    Hawley argues that these features are designed to be addictive, keeping users glued to their screens for as long as possible. 

    “Big tech has embraced a business model of addiction,” he said in a statement. “Too much of the ‘innovation’ in this space is designed not to create better products, but to capture more attention by using psychological tricks that make it difficult to look away. This legislation will put an end to that and encourage true innovation by tech companies.”

    Critics Speak Out

    The freshman senator has made a name for himself as a leading critic of major technology companies, and this bill has some major opposition from organizations like the trade group known as the Internet Association (IA) and others from Silicon Valley as well as free market conservatives, according to The Hill.

    “There are a wealth of existing tools that allow users to make choices about how they engage online,” IA President and CEO Michael Beckerman said in a statement opposing the SMART Act.

    However, Hawley argues that the options to turn off potentially addictive social media features are often difficult to locate. His bill would change that by requiring it to be easy to opt out of features like autoplay as well as forcing social media platforms to offer tools that help users limit their time on their sites and apps.

    If passed, companies would have a few months to make these changes before the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys could take action against them.

    Hawley’s SMART Act has not yet gained and co-sponsors, but his past bills addressing consumer data protection and what some believe is “political censorship” have drawn some bipartisan interest.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Finding Recovery and Support for Opioid Addiction on Social Media

    Finding Recovery and Support for Opioid Addiction on Social Media

    The rules state: We support everyone’s path to recovery, including Suboxone, Subutex, Methadone, Vivitrol, cannabis and kratom. We do not allow any debate as to whether or not being on maintenance meds means you are or aren’t clean.

    Four years ago, Dorothy had no support for her opioid addiction. As a mother and stepmother, she was afraid to be open about her struggle; if her children’s father or stepchildren’s mother found out, they might question her ability to be a good parent. She thought about attending recovery meetings but was worried they would shun her for being in active addiction or, some years later, for taking Suboxone, a partial opioid agonist, to manage her chronic pain. Luckily, she discovered a private Facebook group that supported people like her with opiate addiction.

    For the sake of full disclosure, I’m also a member of this group. While I enjoy my social media fill of cats dressed in dinosaur costumes, babies getting slices of Kraft singles thrown at their heads, and I love dad jokes just as much as the next person, I value this group the most.

    Addiction Support…on Facebook?

    The group quickly became a refuge for Dorothy and me, a digital safe haven where we could share our pains and joys behind the privacy of a screen.

    “I have made friends that I’m sure I’ll have for the rest of my life. I feel supported and secure here. What I love the most is how diverse we are. We run the gamut from people who are using to people who are totally abstinent and everything in between… All we ask is that people respect each other and everyone’s path to recovery,” Dorothy said.

    After participating in another group where members were shamed for taking Suboxone or methadone to manage their opioid addiction, I found Dorothy and the group’s perspective on harm reduction refreshing. In order to join the group, members must agree that they will not bash medication-assisted treatment (MAT). According to the official group guideline: “We support everyone’s path to recovery, including Suboxone, Subutex, Methadone, Vivitrol, cannabis and kratom. We do not allow any debate as to whether or not being on maintenance meds means you are or aren’t clean.”

    Another administrator added, “If you hate the fact there are active addicts in this group, if you don’t support MAT or [you] want to be a douche canoe to everyone you meet who doesn’t live up to your standards, LEAVE.”

    After nine months of participating in this group, Dorothy became a volunteer staff member, then administrator. On an average day, she spends six hours involved in the various tasks that keep the group running. Dorothy, along with eight other administrators and nine moderators, approves each post before it hits the page, ensuring that the posts follow group guidelines. The guidelines mirror that of an in-person support group: members must maintain each other’s confidentiality and privacy, be respectful, and refrain from giving medical advice, selling or seeking drugs, asking for money, or posting links to treatment centers.

    Sarah Burbank has also been a volunteer group administrator for four years and spends four to eight hours on the group each day. Sarah considers the members of the group to be family. “The group is a touchstone and an inspiration. I have watched some group members pass away and have to announce to the group a loved one or cherished member has passed away from the disease. Those are the darkest of days. But there are little milestones that we share that make it so special. Day 1! 30 days! Years clean! Getting children back and jobs and lives back. Those are the truly beautiful things that keep me here.”

    Dorothy and Sarah are not alone. This particular Facebook group has blossomed to 22,000 members. Members are hungry to share their stories, to be supported, validated, and encouraged. Posts reveal a complex tapestry of emotions: of recovery, struggle, pain, joy, heartbreak, victory and defeat, often all in a single post.

    Using Social Media to Forge Connections in Marginalized Groups

    It may seem contradictory to turn to social media for support for addiction. According to a 2018 Fix article based on research from Penn State, social media use is correlated with increased rates of depression and loneliness. Similarly, in 2011, Researchers Daria J. Kuss and Mark D. Griffiths systematically reviewed psychological literature and found that social media can be used for connection, but also that it may negatively impact relationships, work, and academic achievement. This and other evidence suggest social media can be an addiction just like alcohol and drugs.

    While it’s important to acknowledge this research and the potential negative impacts of social media, this critique fails to recognize the power of online social networks, especially for marginalized people. Toronto-based mental health professional Krystal Kavita Jagoo says, “For some, authentic human connection may only come online. Sometimes you don’t have those options in person.” Jagoo pointed out that social media or internet forums can feel safer for people of color, queer, trans, and non-binary folks, and people of differing abilities.

    Jagoo continued, “If you’ve had a traumatic experience and are able to hear from others about things someone has struggled with, you don’t feel as alone. Sometimes it’s just knowing that others understand what you’re going through; they can offer strategies or things that have worked for them that you might be more inclined [to try] than a professional who doesn’t have lived experience.”

    Jagoo herself has found valuable support online. “I think of how healing it has been to connect with folks of color around the world with respect to surviving oppression.” In order to maintain balance in our lives and avoid social media burnout, Jagoo recommends finding a group that is anti-oppressive, accepting, and feels rewarding. Setting and maintaining boundaries is important, as is making sure that you only check notifications when you have time and energy to engage, and unfollowing or leaving groups if they are feeling more draining than helpful.

    Both Dorothy and Sarah mentioned that it is difficult to be a group administrator while balancing their work and home lives. But by far, they feel the benefits outweigh the challenges of spending hours volunteering in the group. “The online community is really important because it allows people to connect in the safety of their own homes, anonymously if they choose. It gives us the ability to reach so many more people, people that we wouldn’t have otherwise had any contact with.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Study Challenges Link Between Teen Social Media Use And Depression

    Study Challenges Link Between Teen Social Media Use And Depression

    Researchers explored whether teens are using social media to feel better or if it makes them feel worse.

    Which came first? It has been documented that teen social media use is tied to higher rates of depression, but a new study suggests that experiencing symptoms of depression may actually lead to social media use, rather than the other way around. 

    The study, published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science, polled 6th, 7th and 8th graders over the course of two years, and college students over the course of 6 years.

    Researchers asked about weekday and weekend social media use and other screen time, and evaluated the participants for depression using established scales, according to Science Daily. 

    The researchers found that social media use did not predict symptoms of depression.

    Breaking the data down between ages and genders, the researchers found that among people with depressive symptoms, only teen girls are likely to spend more time on social media, said lead study author Taylor Heffer.

    “This finding contrasts with the idea that people who use a lot of social media become more depressed over time. Instead, adolescent girls who are feeling down may turn to social media to try and make themselves feel better,” Heffer said.

    The study differed from previous research because it polled participants over time, rather than relying on information about depressive symptoms and social media use from one specific time. 

    “You have to follow the same people over time in order to draw the conclusion that social media use predicts greater depressive symptoms,” Heffer said. “By using two large longitudinal samples, we were able to empirically test that assumption.”

    The study results may be a welcome relief for parents who are concerned that social media engagement could be detrimental to their children’s health, Heffer said.

    “When parents read media headlines such as ‘Facebook Depression,’ there is an inherent assumption that social media use leads to depression. Policymakers also have recently been debating ways to tackle the effects of social media use on mental health.”

    Instead of looking to broad trends in the cause and effect of social media use, Heffer said it’s important that individuals pay attention to how they particularly are affected by heavy social media use, if at all. 

    “There may be different groups of people who use social media for different reasons. For example, there may be a group of people who use social media to make social comparisons or turn to it when they are feeling down, while another group of people may use it for more positive reasons, such as keeping in contact with friends.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Can A Facebook Break Help Mental Health?

    Can A Facebook Break Help Mental Health?

    A new study examined whether deactivating Facebook could have a positive effect on mental health.

    The connection between social media and mental health is nothing new, as more research implies that regular use of platforms such as Facebook can take a negative toll on users. 

    In fact, a new “Gold Standard” study from Stanford University and New York University researchers indicates that deactivating Facebook can have positive effects on one’s mental health. 

    According to Fast Company, researchers in the study sought out 2,844 Facebook users via Facebook ads. They asked the users to take part in an in-depth questionnaire about “overall well-being, political views, and daily routine.”

    Of those, half were randomly chosen to be paid in order to deactivate their Facebook accounts for a full month. The accounts were monitored to make sure they remained deactivated. Over the four weeks, researchers studied the moods of the participants. 

    “Deactivation caused small but significant improvements in well-being, and in particular on self-reported happiness, life satisfaction, depression, and anxiety,” researchers wrote. “Effects on subjective well-being as measured by responses to brief daily text messages are positive but not significant.”

    Despite the increase in well-being, researchers made sure to note that Facebook is beneficial for users in some cases. 

    “Our participants’ answers in free response questions and follow-up interviews make clear the diverse ways in which Facebook can improve people’s lives, whether as a source of entertainment, a means to organize a charity or an activist group, or a vital social lifeline for those who are otherwise isolated,” they wrote. “Any discussion of social media’s downsides should not obscure the basic fact that it fulfills deep and widespread needs.”

    In conclusion, researchers noted that by not using Facebook, overall online activity was reduced and replaced by real-life activities such as spending time with friends and family and watching Netflix. They also added that participants who deactivated their accounts were found to have “lower levels of political polarization and news knowledge, and an increase in subjective well-being.”

    “We find that while deactivation makes people less informed, it also makes them less polarized by at least some measures, consistent with the concern that social media have played some role in the recent rise of polarization in the U.S.,” researchers wrote. 

    Additionally, researchers found that participants who had deactivated their accounts continued to spend less time on Facebook even in the weeks after the study had ended. 

    “The trajectory of views on social media—with early optimism about great benefits giving way to alarm about possible harms—is a familiar one,” researchers concluded. “Innovations from novels to TV to nuclear energy have had similar trajectories. Along with the excellent existing work by other researchers, we hope that our analysis can help move the discussion from simplistic caricatures to hard evidence, and to provide a sober assessment of the way a new technology affects both individual people and larger social institutions.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Slipknot’s Corey Taylor Talks Social Media Addiction In New Book

    Slipknot’s Corey Taylor Talks Social Media Addiction In New Book

    The singer reveals his battle with social media and addiction in his new book.

    Corey Taylor, the lead singer of Slipknot, has been very open with the public about his struggles with addiction, and in his next book, he’ll be confessing an addiction to social media.

    As Loudwire reports, Taylor will examine the link between addiction and social media in his new book, and it’s apparently something he understands firsthand.

    “There’s a flare in addiction right now and it’s one of the things I’m working on in my new book,” he explains. “There’s a correlation between that and social media – all of the shit that’s been triggered because of social media, the same kind of dopamine trigger. It’s compulsion, gratification, compulsion, gratification. It’s just a constant cycle.”

    Taylor admits he had become addicted to social media himself, adding he had “just gotten separated and I kind of went down a crazy wormhole and I was really depressed . . . I had just been through hell. Before, you’re a single guy, you go out, you play the scene, you do whatever. Now, you’ve got all this crazy shit at your fingertips. For an addict, it was fucking nuts.

    “Instagram, Twitter… it took me a while to get out of it,” Taylor continues. “For about three months solid, that’s all I did, ignoring my fucking duties and shit. The only time I would really fucking get away from it was when I was with my kids. Then the compulsion would come right back and I was like, ‘What is going in?’ It took me so long to settle that compulsion down … If I could get rid of it all, period, I would.”

    As far as Taylor’s belief that his addiction transferred to social media, there is certainly a lot of speculation these days about whether social media could be a true addiction that needs to be taken seriously. Many reports have found a link between social media and depression, and recently Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce made the analogy between social media addiction and the cigarette industry.

    “It’s addictive,” Benioff told CNBC. “It’s not good for you. There’s people trying to get you to use it that even you don’t understand what’s going on. The government needs to really regulate what’s happening.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Could Social Media Addiction Be Worse For You Than Cigarettes?

    Could Social Media Addiction Be Worse For You Than Cigarettes?

    Social media addiction is being compared to cigarettes but can it really do that much damage?

    Social media can certainly be addicting, and there are some who feel it can be harmful to your mental health if you spend too much time on it. But can it truly be more harmful than cigarettes?

    As Forbes reports, Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, made this analogy at the World Economic Forum earlier this year, and he also proclaimed that social media companies like Facebook should be regulated “exactly the same way you regulated the cigarette industry.”

    In an interview with CNBC, Benioff also proclaimed that “Facebook is the new cigarettes. You know, it’s addictive. It’s not good for you. There’s people trying to get you to use it that even you don’t understand what’s going on. The government needs to step in. The government needs to really regulate what’s happening.”

    As Benioff concluded, “Technology has addictive qualities that we have to address… product designers are working to make those products more addictive and we need to rein that back.”

    But is he overreacting?

    There have indeed been studies that claim that being addicted to social media is a real phenomenon and, like video games, social media is designed to be addictive. When you’re running a business, you want people to spend as much time on your site as possible to drive sales.

    Forbes listed a number of factors that explain why people can be vulnerable to social media addiction. One of them is that people are “social creatures” who want to reach out and belong, and we crave validation. Social media can reward that validation with “likes,” “follows” or a smiley face emoji.

    Another factor that can drive social media addiction in people is FOMO, or the “fear of missing out.” According to one study, 67% of people polled who used social media were terrified that they would be missing out on something if they didn’t check in with social media.

    As Sean Parker, former president of Facebook, told the Guardian, businesses use these plaforms as “a social-validation feedback loop… exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”

    This is actually not the first time that social media has been called “the new cigarettes.” Oren Frank, the founder and CEO of Talkspace, made the same prediction in the Huffington Post several years ago, warning that “social media platforms are not only full aware of their impact, but actually leverage it to make sure this addiction is maintained and increased, not hesitating to use psychological levers and biases to guarantee that we will keep coming back.”

    At the same time, comparisons were recently made to social media and cocaine, though scientists from the Oxford Internet Institute felt this was an irresponsible comparison to make.

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

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "Ralph Breaks The Internet" Was Originally About Social Media Addiction

    "Ralph Breaks The Internet" Was Originally About Social Media Addiction

    The original storyline of Ralph Breaks the Internet focused on social media addiction and the obsession with getting “likes” and affirmations.  

    Ralph Breaks the Internet is the follow-up to the popular animated movie, Wreck-It Ralph. Sarah Silverman and John C. Reilly voice the video game characters Vanellope and Wreck-It Ralph, two unlikely friends.

    The sequel—now playing in theaters—was almost a tale of internet addiction, according to the film’s producers.

    Wreck-it Ralph is about arcade-game character Wreck-It Ralph who doesn’t want to be the bad guy in the game anymore. After years of being the bad guy to good guy Fix-It Felix, Ralph takes action: he hops through video games to prove that he can be the hero. But while on this hero’s journey, Ralph accidentally unleashes a deadly enemy to the entire arcade.

    Wreck-It Ralph meets Vanellope, a video game character who thinks she is the bad guy, when actually she is the princess destined to win the game.

    The sequel sees Wreck-It Ralph and Vanellope beginning a journey inside the world wide web to find a replacement part for Vanellope’s game. Without the replacement part, Vanellope will cease to exist in the virtual world they inhabit.

    Producer Clark Spencer told Yahoo Movies UK that the original concept went down a darker-themed journey. In the original movie plot, Vanellope became obsessed with her online status and growing her social media affirmations, echoing the experience of many young people in the modern world.

    “In the very beginning we did want the story to be the concept of being caught up in the Internet,” Spencer told Yahoo Movies UK earlier this year. “So there was a story told where Vanellope, being the younger character, actually got caught up in the ‘likes’ and she started to feel like that was giving her the affirmation she needed.”

    Social media addiction is a growing concern as generations of children are growing up spending hours a day engaging online.

    However, the filmmakers felt that the plot wasn’t authentic to the strong character of Vanellope they had created. Spencer told Yahoo, “It made us take a step back and say: what’s a different story we can tell that still deals with those elements of the Internet that are complicated?”

    Spencer continued. “How do we deal with comments? How do we deal with the word ‘likes’ and what does it mean for someone? That idea of affirmation through this kind of anonymous body of the Internet.”

    Ultimately the storyline focused on how identity is created and understood through how we spend our days, and what we identify with.

    “What we wanted to say is: What would it mean to a character if their game actually was gone?” Spencer told Yahoo. “Do they define themselves by their games rather than who they are? It’s sort of like do I define myself by my career or do I define by myself as an individual or as a person? That is a key element of what we explore with Vanellope.”

    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