With millions of people spending innumerable hours on their phones and social media platforms, a serious question emerges. At what point does social media go from a regular habit to a full-blown addiction? Despite concerned parents thinking otherwise, new research finds frequent social media use “may not amount to the same as addiction.”

The findings of a new study at the University of Strathclyde suggest that frequent usage of social media may not amount to the same behaviour, as that of addiction. The study invited 100 participants to locate specific social media apps on a simulated smartphone screen as quickly and accurately as possible while ignoring other apps.

The participants were varied in the extent and type of their social media use and engagement. The research has been published in the Journal of Behavioural Addictions. The exercise aimed to assess whether social media users who reported the greatest level of use were more likely to have their attention drawn to the apps through a process known as ‘attentional bias,’ which is a recognised hallmark of addiction.

 It also assessed whether this bias was associated with scores on established measures of social media engagement and ‘addiction’. The findings did not indicate that users’ attention was drawn more to social media apps than to any others, such as a weather app; they were also not associated with self-reported or measurable levels of addictive severity.

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