Launched in 2004, Facebook has attracted over 900 million active users by now. Mark Zuckerberg's creation is extraordinary in multiple dimensions ranging from corporate finance to marketing and social interactions. A group of Norwegian researchers surrounding Dr. Cecilie Andreassen at the University of Bergen has now attempted to create a psychological scale which measures whether an individual is addicted to Facebook.
Ranked by personality
In their research paper, they state that "social network sites are predominantly used for maintenance of established offline networks which, for many, are important in terms of academic and professional opportunities."
People with certain character traits are more likely to engage on social platforms. The paper rates them on 5 dimensions, namely: "Extraversion (e.g., being outgoing, talkative), Agreeableness (e.g., being sympathetic and warm), Conscientiousness (e.g., being organized and prompt), Neuroticism (e.g., being nervous and moody), and Openness to experience (e.g., being creative and intellectually oriented)."
Narcissism and procrastination
"People scoring high on narcissism tend to be more active on social network sites, as social network sites provide an opportunity to present oneself in a favorable way in line with one's ideal self. We have also found that people who are anxious and socially insecure use Facebook more than those with lower scores on those traits, probably because those who are anxious find it easier to communicate via social media than face-to-face," Dr. Andreassen commented on their results.
"People who score low on Conscientiousnessare assumed to use social media as a way of procrastinating, hence, Conscientiousness is assumed to be negatively associated with social media use." Overall, organized and individuals are less likely to get addicted to Facebook, while they employ it as a tool to enhance their work and networking power. On average, women have a greater tendency to exhibit Facebook addiction.
Among students, procrastination is indeed often reported as the primary outcome of Facebook interaction. The Norwegian researchers write that "social-network site use can lead to a variety of negative consequences such as decrease in real-life communities, worsening of academic performance, and relationship problems (Kuss & Griffiths, 2011)."
Are you addicted to Facebook?
The scale put forward by Andreassen's team is based on the following six criteria. Respondents can choose between (1) Very rarely, (2) Rarely, (3) Sometimes, (4) Often, and (5) Very often:
Answering "Often" or "Very often" to at least four of these criteria indicates that the individual is addicted to Facebook according to their research. The results are based on an analysis of questionnaires given out to 423 students last year.
Do not generalize findings
Dr. Mark Griffiths from Nottingham Trent University (UK) lauded his colleagues for their findings but advised caution. In a response, he stated that their scale was linked to the product Facebook itself and could not be easily generalized to other social media.
In fact, Facebook users themselves already use the website in many different ways, e.g. for watching videos, playing games etc. From a psychological point of view, scientists should therefore distinguish between addiction to activities on social media sites and addiction to the site itself.