A new study shows that reducing social media use by one week neither increases nor decreases people’s desire to go online again. The lack of desire to return to social media platforms such as Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) suggests that social media use may not be truly addictive for most people, the authors say. But some experts remain skeptical.

“This is a really well-done study,” says communication expert Mariek Vanden Abile of Ghent University, who was not involved in the study. Because people often view excessive social media use as an addiction, the idea of ​​detoxing yourself from Instagram and X, just like drugs or alcohol, has taken hold, he says. “What do we see in this study? It doesn’t actually work very well,” says Vanden Abile.

As social media use has skyrocketed over the past decade, public discourse has focused on social media’s potential to undermine our emotional well-being and even make us addicted to likes and follows. Some studies have shown that excessive use is associated with increased depression and anxiety. In rare cases, it can mimic substance use disorders such as drug addiction or pathological gambling and cause withdrawal-like symptoms such as cravings, loneliness, and low mood.

However, the results were not final. Some studies have shown that people feel happier during a “digital detox” rather than suffering from withdrawal symptoms, while others find no change. For these and similar reasons, some experts are reluctant to use the language of addiction in social media use. “We are quite dependent on these devices,” says Vanden Abile. “But that doesn’t make us pathologically addicted.”

To investigate how staying away from social media affects emotional health and whether it shows any signs of addiction, psychologists Niclas Ihsen and Michael Wadsley from Durham University asked 51 student volunteers to promise to stay away from social media for 1 week, but did not impose any restrictions. Their access to social media leaves the results in favor of the honor system. During that week, the survey recorded how much time the subjects spent on various smartphone apps and their emotional health.

The duo also has the subjects perform laboratory exercises similar to those used in some addiction studies. In one of them, researchers told subjects to approach or avoid social media icons on the screen by pressing buttons, like moving a video game character toward a target. In another, subjects were given longer access to social networks so that they could press the space bar faster. After trying to stay away from social media for a week, subjects were no longer likely to gravitate towards app icons or click much faster or slower on the keyboard.

Overall, the results of the study showed no change in willingness to use social media over the course of a week, the researchers report published today in PLOS ONE. “What we see on social media is qualitatively different from drugs,” says Ihsen. “Craving or compulsive use can be expected.” “We should not over-pathologize normal behavior.”

This doesn’t mean that the social media break didn’t impact participants at all. In fact, with less use of social networks, the subjects’ negative emotions decreased. However, the positive situation has diminished. “You lose that good feeling when you see how many people like your photos,” says İhsen.

Not everyone was convinced by the research. “One week is not enough time to see lasting or significant changes in well-being,” Jean Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University, said in an email. “And 51 people is not enough to get reliable results.” Ihssen says that the statistical method determined the size of the study, and that staying away from social media for a long time may not change the results much, since the emotional changes of the subjects mostly stabilize after a few days.

A few days were enough for most of the subjects to return at least slightly to their old habits: all but seven were unable to stay away from social media completely. But most have significantly reduced their use, from an average of 3.5 hours to 35 minutes per day. And while the numbers rose again during the four days observed after the “detox” week, they remained lower by about an hour per day than before. Some experts say such a short break could mean a starting point for those looking to reduce their social media use, even if its impact on mental health remains unclear.

“If you teach [людей]Ofir Turel, an information systems scientist at the University of Melbourne who was not involved in the research, said people could use social media for half an hour a day and develop better habits. to work.

The adoption of such a new “diet” on social networks encourages the comparison of certain products, which many experts prefer to compare with drugs. “You need food to survive, but the quantity and quality of what you eat really matters,” says Vanden Abile. Similarly, he says that we often depend on social media for social communication, but it is possible to exaggerate this. “If Instagram is your go-to, it’s like chocolate chip cookies.”

However, substituting chocolate chip cookies for ice cream may defeat the purpose of the diet. The authors of the new study found that in the absence of social media, subjects spent more time playing video games and shopping online. Source