What draws people to social media, and what can make quitting so difficult, is that nearly every time a user logs on, they receive small \u201csocial rewards\u201d through interactions on the platforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And not all of these social rewards are as innocent as the feeling of reconnecting with an old friend or getting a \u201clike\u201d on a family photo, for example. The unique rewards people crave from social media depend on their personalities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a new study, researchers from Michigan State University and the California State University at Fullerton found a link between severe addiction to Snapchat and Facebook and \u201cnegative social potency,\u201d which they defined as the \u201cmotivation to be cruel, callous and use others for personal gain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt appears that given the presumably unintended ability of social media sites to cater to people who seek rewards from being cruel, such as through cyberbullying or various aggressive online behaviors, people high in trait negative social potency are more likely than others to engage in repeated, rewarding behaviors \u2013 rewarding for them (but that may hurt others) \u2013 that may eventually reinforce problematic use,\u201d the researchers wrote in a paper<\/a> describing the study. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They arrived at their conclusion after measuring the total time 472 college students spent on each platform and evaluating their answers to a questionnaire that measured their preferences for the types of social interactions they enjoy, such as admiration, sexual relationships, sociability and negative social potency, among others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of overall use, the researchers determined that the participants averaged more time each day on Snapchat than Facebook, 2.64 hours compared to 2.28 hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They also found that the participants reported more problematic use of Snapchat. But yet, the participants reported trying to quit Facebook more often. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGiven our finding that college students\u2019 use of Snapchat is more problematic, we thought there would have been more attempts to quit or curtail use,\u201d co-author Dar Meshi<\/a>, a cognitive neuroscientist and assistant professor in MSU\u2019s College of Communication Arts and Sciences, said in a news release<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Every day, millions of people across the world spend hours of their lives surfing and scrolling through social media platforms. While many have control over their social media use, others are severely addicted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Addicted individuals display symptoms similar to those who have substance abuse disorders, according to the researchers. They often experience interpersonal conflict due to their social media use, and they frequently relapse when they try to quit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Understanding which social reward preferences are related to problematic use is extremely important for clinical psychologists who are treating patients, Meshi explained in the release. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf there\u2019s a patient who says they\u2019re having problems overusing these platforms, the clinician will have a better understanding as to what drives them socially and should be better able to help them,\u201d added Meshi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What draws people to social media, and what can make quitting so difficult, is that nearly every time a user logs on, they receive small \u201csocial rewards\u201d through interactions on the platforms. And not all of these social rewards are as innocent as the feeling of reconnecting with an old friend or getting a \u201clike\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":48012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[305,6,377,230,229],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-california-state-university-fullerton","category-student-advocacy","category-michigan-state-university","category-news","category-lead-stories"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Personality-Traits-May-Make-People-More-Addicted-To-Social-Media.jpg",830,533,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Personality-Traits-May-Make-People-More-Addicted-To-Social-Media-224x144.jpg",224,144,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Personality-Traits-May-Make-People-More-Addicted-To-Social-Media-300x193.jpg",300,193,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Personality-Traits-May-Make-People-More-Addicted-To-Social-Media.jpg",830,533,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Personality-Traits-May-Make-People-More-Addicted-To-Social-Media.jpg",830,533,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Personality-Traits-May-Make-People-More-Addicted-To-Social-Media.jpg",830,533,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Personality-Traits-May-Make-People-More-Addicted-To-Social-Media.jpg",830,533,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Jackson Schroeder","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/author\/jackson-schroeder\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"What draws people to social media, and what can make quitting so difficult, is that nearly every time a user logs on, they receive small \u201csocial rewards\u201d through interactions on the platforms. And not all of these social rewards are as innocent as the feeling of reconnecting with an old friend or getting a \u201clike\u201d…","featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Personality-Traits-May-Make-People-More-Addicted-To-Social-Media.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}