Are you addicted to social media? How to recognise it and deal with your non-stop scrolling
Social media addiction is not officially registered as a mental illness, but it affects adults and children. Here are tips on cutting down
Social media addiction has been compared to addiction to casinos, opioids and cigarettes.
While there is some debate among experts about the line between overuse and addiction, and whether social media can cause the latter, there is no doubt that many people feel like they cannot escape the pull of Instagram, Snapchat, RedNote and other platforms.
The companies that designed your favourite apps have an incentive to keep you glued to them: they can serve up ads that make them billions of dollars in revenue.
Resisting the pull of the endless scroll, the dopamine hits from short-form videos, and the ego boost and validation that come from likes and positive interactions can seem like an unfair fight. For some people, “rage-bait”, gloomy news and arguing with internet strangers have an irresistible draw.
Dr Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist and the medical director of addiction medicine at Stanford University’s School of Medicine in California, defines addiction as “the continued compulsive use of a substance or behaviour despite harm to self or others”.