There are tests for measuring internet addiction, as well as functions for tracking time spent on particular social networks. Now, US researchers have gone one step further by developing a new tool capable of measuring addiction to digital media – regardless of the new technologies that may emerge – and their findings suggest that students aren’t as addicted as you might think.
“We wanted to create a tool that was immediately useful in the clinic and lab, that reflects current understandings about how digital addiction works, that wouldn’t go obsolete once the next big tech change hits,” said co-lead researcher Daniel Hipp of Binghamton University in New York.
The idea, he explained, was to anticipate future changes in the digital world, and to help users gauge their dependence on these platforms.
To that end, the experts have developed the Digital Media Overuse Scale (dMOS), a tool that enables people to conduct broad research based on social networks, or for more refined investigations such as focusing on Instagram.
dMOS was tested via a survey of over 1,000 students, with the aim of assessing their behaviour in five areas: general smartphone use, online video consumption, social media use, gaming, and pornography use.
Among key findings, the researchers observed “few indicators of dependence or overuse” of digital media among the majority of students, even if the responses of some participants resembled forms of addiction.
“Overall, the outcome reveals that overuse is not a general thing; respondents typically reported overuse in one or a few domains only, such as social media,” explained Peter Gerhardstein, who contributed to the research.
The researchers present dMOS as a “reliable, valid and extendible” tool capable of providing “clinically relevant scores”.
“Rather than focusing on the tech, we built into the scale a set of ‘skeletal’ questions that focus on psychology,” Hipp added. “For example, one question type is: ‘I have trouble stopping myself from using X even when I know I should.’
“By replacing X with a tech domain, such as social media or gaming, we can ask the same question about several different tech domains. And we can replace X in future studies with new technology domains as they emerge.”
The scientists are already experimenting with extending the scale to two other technological areas – without specifying – and intend to work with other researchers to “improve our collective understanding of how human psychology relates to the rapidly changing landscape of digital media”.