Topic:

The relationship between Problematic social media use and its effects on the
health of adolescents.

Submitted By

Bs 190203873

Iqra Ishtiaq

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY,
VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY OF PAKISTAN
Chapter I
Introduction
Social media that become integrated and essential part of the daily life has become
an major aspect of daily life while distributing its immense effects on the
environment. Research into excessive and frequent usage of social network
activities has complied up many terms that use as title for this section of research
such as, “Social network site addiction ( SNS Addiction)”, “problematic usage of
social media and its effects” and many more. The section of users of social media
are above 3 million worldwide and approximately every 44,00000 individuals daily
upload their content on social media leading to an abnormal usage of social media
that takes another turn into their mental and physical health.

Researchers have received the relationship network social media usage and its
effects on mental health. Over the last few decades the usage of social media can
be explained by many other researchers such as, individuals visits social media
sites to engage into different website to get engage into many different types of
entertainment and social activity including playing games, socializing, passing
time, posting pictures and communicating with others (Allen et al., 2014, Ryan et
al., 2014). Although this has quickly become a normal modern phenomenon (boyd
& Ellison, 2007), concerns have been raised regarding the potential addictive use
of social media (e.g., Andreassen, 2015, Griffiths et al., 2014). Such excessive and
compulsive use has been explained by general addiction models (Griffiths, 2005)
and defined accordingly as “being overly concerned about social media, driven by
an uncontrollable motivation to log on to or use social media, and devoting so
much time and effort to social media that it impairs other important life areas”
(Andreassen & Pallesen, 2014, p. 4054).

Background of the Project:

 Development in the research of social media is growing rapidly that shows the
immense effects of social media over social, cognitive, physical and mental health
on the adolescence. The World Health Organization (2021) stated that worldwide
mental disorders affect one in seven adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19.
The current researched knowledge on the association of social media with
adolescence is complex and difficult to follow. Problematic social media usage
among the under age kids and on adolescence is showing substance related
disorders by which detrimental effects occur. The online bullying and name
tagging which is called as Cyber bullying is now been practiced n all online
technologies ( UNICEF ,2023).Beside from the advertising usage of the social
media, if we talk about the time duration of which usage of social media can be
based, the term of problematic use, its characterize individuals who experience
addiction like symptoms as a result of social media use. An scale has been
designed to measures features of substance use disorder such as silence, tolerance,
preoccupation, impaired role performance, loss of control and withdrawal which is
associated to systematically score problematic Facebook use. This scale is known
as Andreassen et al’s scale or Facebook addiction scale. The scale is used widely
over the globe to identify and conceptualize problematic use of social media as a
behavior addiction and its associated diagnosis which include, stress, depression,
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),anxiety, panic attacks , obsessive-
compulsive disorder (OCD), and loose of intellectual abilities.

1.1. Variable 1:
The first variable for the given research topic would be “The problematic usage
of social media”. That includes the ratio of usage of social media platform by
the number of individuals. The usage of social media by various media
platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, Whatsapp and many
other platforms have been use in wide range making an major impact on the
daily life.

1.2 Variable II:

The second variable for the choose topic is “effects on the adolescents”. The
variable shows the impact of the first variable (the problematic usage of social
media) to the mental health of adolescents. The impact has been studied and
researched by many researchers making it a major portion of psychological
knowledge so that we can aware of the dangerous outcomes.

Chapter II

Literature Review
Carr & Hayes (2015) wrote that many internet-based networks that allow users to
communicate with others verbally and visually are referred to as ‘social media’.
Social media is now become an important platform presenting various platforms.
According to the research conducted by We Are Social (2021) reported that there
were more than 4,5 billion social media users worldwide. And every next year
almost 10 percent addition of new websites can be seen. The accounts in social
media are more than half of the world population. The usage of this social media
sites has emerged as the backbone of present communicating and interacting, since
they enable individuals to establish a sense of connecting to one another and alter
their lifestyles (Griffiths, 2019)

A systematic literature search was conducted in April 2021 using the databases
Engineering Village, PsycInfo, Pubmed, and Web of Science using the terms
“social media,” “social networking,” “mental health,” “depression,” “depressive
symptoms,” “anxiety,” and “stress.” These search terms were used to quantify
social media use in terms of problematic use. In 2023, some social media users and
statista conducted a research about the usage of social media platforms where they
estimated the platforms which are used mostly and frequently. According to the
research Facebook was an first position where every 2,958 million active users,
Youtube was in second number, third place was WhatsApp with 2,000 million
active monthly users daily. While snapchat, and instagram was in fourth number.
The ratio shows clearly that the usage of social media is become as much
necessary as much to get food.

2.1 Rationale of the Study:

The rational of the study is can be understand by following questions:

Q1: What is the relation between the excessive usage of the social media with the
human nature?

Q2: What outcome one can have after having PSMU on their mental health?

The relationship between these factors with the every single outcomes make this
topic researchable, The aim to find out the factors, outcomes and the statistical
science for the PSMU will be an great piece of knowledge to gather about.
2.2 Objectives of the Study

 To find out the relation between the problematic excessive usage of social
media and the outcome one adolescent can have?
 To find out the mental disorders or malfunctioning one adolescent can have
after experience PSMU or SMUA.

2.3 Hypotheses:

H1: There is a relationship between social media usage and adolescents’ mental
health.

H2; There is a relationship between social media usage and adolescents’ body
image.

Chapter III

Method

3.1 Nature of Research:

The present research is quantitative in nature. The motive for using quantitative
research method are ,

 Can have better understanding about the relationship between two variables.
 So we can precisely predict the relationship between two variables.

3.2 Research Design:

The research design will be online survey based on the format of Fardouly et al.
(2015), mental health which were adapted from from Kroencke et al. (2020), and
body image adapted from Tiggemann & Slater (2014) and are closedended in
nature.
3.3 Research/Sampling Strategy:

It would be online data collection based on google forms survey. It would be the
Non-Probability sampling.

3.4 Sample:

The sample will be conducted by 78 respondents, their age will be in between 14-
26 so that a better understanding for the adolescents age range can have. It will be
online post survey. The convincing sampling will be posted by various social
media platform so that maximum outcomes in the form of participants can have.

3.5 Assessment Measures

The research design will be online survey based on the format of Fardouly et al.
(2015), mental health which were adapted from from Kroencke et al. (2020), and
body image adapted from Tiggemann & Slater (2014) and are closed ended in
nature.

Various scales will be used as well for getting accurate result such as Facebook
Intensity Scale, The Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale and Social Media
Disorder Scale are the one which can be helpful n the measuring results.

3-5 Assessment measure:

3.5.1 Demographic information questions:

The sample will be conducted by 78 respondents, their age range will be n between
14-26 as we want to assess the adolescents behavior. The test will be free from any
racism or biased free as only the concern would be age.

While functioning Facebook intensity scale, the Bergen social media addiction
scale and Social media disorder scale, the demographic information regarding each
scale will be different.
3.5.2 Scale 1:

Facebook Intensity Scale, designed by Nicole B. Ellison, Charles Steinfield, and

Cliff Lampe in a 2007.

3.5.3 Scale 2:

he Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS) was developed

by Andreassen (Andreassen et al., 2016) as a one-dimensional scale for measuring
SMA with six items/indicators: 1) salience, 2) tolerance, 3) mood modification, 4)
relapse/loss of control, 5) withdrawal, and 6) conflict/functional impairment.

3.6 Procedure:

The procedure will be different based on the relative scale and the research plan.
The research design will be online survey based on the format of Fardouly et al.
(2015), mental health which were adapted from from Kroencke et al. (2020), and
body image adapted from Tiggemann & Slater (2014) and are closed ended in
nature.

3.7 Ethical consideration:

 Test takers must fully understand the purpose, procedures, and potential
consequences of the test. Failure to obtain informed consent can lead to
severe ethical breaches.
 Protecting the confidentiality and privacy of test results is vital.
Psychologists should ensure that only authorized individuals have access to
this sensitive information.
 Choosing the right test for a specific purpose is crucial. Using an
inappropriate test can yield inaccurate results and impact decision-making.
 References

#StatusofMind. (2017). Royal Society for Public Health & Young Health
Movement. https://www.rsph.org.uk/our-work/campaigns/status-of-mind.html

Armstrong, M. (2019, September 6). Infographic: Mental health: The impact of

social media on young people. Statista Infographics.
https://www.statista.com/chart/19262/impact-of-social-media-on-mental-health/

Dixon, S. (2021, December 15). U.S. & UK teens negative feelings originating
Instagram 2019. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1280217/us-uk-
teensnegative-feelings-instagram/?locale=en

Fardouly, J., & Vartanian, L. R. (2016). Social media and body image concerns:
Current research and future directions. Current Opinion in Psychology, 9, 1–5.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.09.005

Ellison, N.B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2011). Connection strategies: Social
capital implications of Facebook-enabled communication practices. New Media &
Society, 13(6), 873-892.
body image concerns and mood. Body Image, 13, 38-45.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2014.12.002

J.P. Abel, C.L. Buff, S.A. Burr

Social media and the fear of missing out: Scale development and assessment

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S0001691823002482#:~:text=The%20Bergen%20Social%20Media%20Addiction
%20Scale%20(BSMAS)%20was%20developed%20by,6)%20conflict
%2Ffunctional%20impairment.