Without help offline, stress can lead to addiction to social networks

A new German study shows that the need for offline badistance is essential to avoid reliance on social networking sites.

The study, led by Dr. Julia Brailovskaia and the team of investigators from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) Center for Mental Health Research and Treatment, revealed that stressed users may develop pathological dependence on social network – the so-called "Facebook addiction."

Addiction symptoms include, for example, users who spend more and more time on Facebook, who are constantly preoccupied with Facebook and who feel uncomfortable when they can not participate in the network. online.

The results of the study appear in the newspaper Psychiatric research.

As part of the study, researchers evaluated the results of an online survey of 309 Facebook users aged 18 to 56.

"We specifically invited students to participate in the survey because they often experience a high level of stress for various reasons," Brailovskaia said.

Students are often put under pressure to succeed. In addition, many leave the family home and the social network of the region; they have to manage a household for the first time and are busy building new relationships.

The research questions were designed to determine a person's level of stress and to capture the extent of social badistance a participant was receiving offline and online. In addition, users were asked how much time they spent daily on Facebook and how they felt if they could not be online.

The investigators discovered that the higher the level of stress, the more the individual was in contact with Facebook.

"Our results showed that there was a positive relationship between the severity of daily stress, the intensity of Facebook's engagement and the tendency to develop a pathological addiction to the social networking site," he said. declared Brailovskaia.

At the same time, this effect is reduced if users have the support of family and friends in real life. People who do not experience a lot of offline support are most at risk of developing a Facebook addiction.

Unfortunately, research implies that a feedback loop can occur if online support is the only method used to reduce stress.

The pathological behavior, in turn, affects their life offline and can trap them in a vicious circle.

"This aspect needs to be taken into account when treating a person with pathological dependence – or a suspicion of pathological dependence – on Facebook," Brailovskaia said.

Source: Ruhr-Universität Bochum

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