A study of components of behavioral addiction to social media use in current generation of Pakistani youth.

Abstract

Information Technology has brought significant changes to the human social interaction & behaviors. Behavioral addiction to social media use is a rather novel concept in psychiatric “classification of diseases”. Some foreign studies have reported it to be as high as 29.5%.^7,8 There is need to study this relatively neglected area specially among our youth. This will help provide reliable data to understand the magnitude of current problem. Objectives: To study the Components of Behavioral addiction to Social Media use: Conflict, Mood Modification, Relapse, Salience, Tolerance and Withdrawal, among the youth in Pakistan. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Department of Psychiatry Services Institute and Medical Sciences, Lahore. Period: March 2019 to May 2019. Material & Methods: Among University students was conducted Purposive sampling technique was employed. Questionnaire forms were given to students of a University. Each questionnaire had 12 questions. There were specific questions for each component of addiction: Conflict, Mood Modification, Relapse, Salience, Tolerance and Withdrawal. Each respondent’s bio-data, preferred social networking medium and frequency of social media use were recorded. They were also asked about their perception about excessive social media use. The responses were based on Likert scale. The respondents were asked to give the single best response to each question. A total of 210 responses were obtained. They were assessed using the software, IBM SPSS version 25. Results: The sample population reported positive for all the components of addiction tested. The majority (greater than 50%) of responses for each component were in “Always” to “Sometimes” range of Likert scale. Conclusion: The current generation of Pakistani youth might be suffering from Behavioral Addiction to Social Media use.