Social Media Addiction: How dangerous social networks can be

After in the morning the alarm clock rang, many of the Smartphone. You can check messages, the weather, and see what friends on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook are up to.

This is repeated several times a day: in the school, at the bus stop, in the evening on the Couch.

The example is fictitious, but it reflects the reality of many people.

As of 2017, young people between 12 and 17 years of age on average spent just under three hours a day alone with social media. This was shown by a study by the health insurance company DAK-Gesundheit and the German centre for addiction issues.

The excessive Scrolling through the Timelines – the list of all the posts from friends and other participants, which follows – can become an Addiction.

According to the DAK study, 2.6 percent of children and adolescents showed a problematic use of social media. Numbers for adults are not yet available.

Social media is not a Bad thing

To Instagram, Snapchat and co. are not a Bad thing, experts are unanimous – on the contrary.

“Social media also mean a Chance”, stressed about Rainer Thomasius, Director of the German centre for addiction issues of the child and adolescence at the University medical center Hamburg-Eppendorf.

In the puberty, it is go for example, to emancipate themselves from the family and roles. Social media can help.

But there are downsides. “The main problem of social media is that you can make so many things that appeal to us,” says Tobias Dienlin, media psychologist at the University of Hohenheim.

You can see in the beautiful pictures and pleasing written short texts, what drives the social environment. You published posts and get confirmation.

“Likes are compliments, and we humans are happy about compliments,” says Dienlin.

In addition, signal colors, notification sounds, and other design elements to ensure that we stay as long as possible on the page.

The possible effect: You always want to read more and can’t stop. If people have this in the handle or run the risk of losing control over the usage, a lot depends on the personality of its own structure.

Constant pressure and incorrect coping strategies

Particularly vulnerable for negative consequences of people with low self-esteem are.

Who does in real life is also hard to find friends, get on social media, the good feeling, to be liked to seen, even if the constant pressure of having to supposedly always new content into the network, it can also make you very unhappy.

The problem is also, if in the case of boredom, Anger, or grief automatically to Twitter or Instagram are open to distraction.

In order to cope with problems, you should have other strategies ready as the view on the Smartphone screen.

Loss of control is an addiction criterion

Thus, Doctors speak of an Addiction, it must meet several criteria.

One of the most important Rainer is no longer Thomasius, according to the loss of control: Who’s thinking about when and why he posts, scrolls, and liked, and thus not easy to stop, might have a serious Problem.

In such a Situation, people like Christian help. He is looking for a therapist in Gütersloh, Germany, and spokesman for the professional Association of media dependence.

In his private practice, parents are always worried about stressed and inattentive children, the dismantling of the school and more and more time in virtual worlds spend.

No regulation in social media

The Problem: “In the case of other addictive substances, we do not have a regulation, in the case of social media,” says Big and pleads for more social awareness.

Users can control it with the help of various applications after all self: For Android users, there are, for example, the free Google-App Digital Wellbeing that can be used to restrict the use of certain Apps in time. Similar allows screen time for iPhones and iPads.

“Anything that promotes self-limitation and self-reflection, is very welcome,” says Addiction expert Rainer Thomasius.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa)

*The contribution of “Social Media Addiction: How dangerous social networks can be published will be” of FitForFun. Contact with the executives here.