Study: Social Media “Addiction” Overblown, Media Called Out

A cornerstone argument for age verification is that social media addiction is rampant. A new study poured cold water on that.

The mythology about social media to justify age verification includes the argument that social media is inherently harmful. Actual research on this subject has disagreed with this notion over and over and over again. It’s a long debunked myth that is only repeated by age verification apologists and mainstream media with a hope and a prayer that, someday, it might eventually be true. Spoiler alert: that isn’t happening any time soon.

Another myth pushed by age verification apologists and the mainstream media is the myth surrounding so-called “social media addiction”. The myth is that social media addiction has run rampant in society. Everyone is becoming addicted to social media and that everyone is being sucked into endless doom scrolling and disinformation sink holes as they are hypnotized by the ever threatening “algorithm”. Because of this, age verification laws are essential because it’ll be a step towards preventing younger people from getting addicted at an early age. After all, social media is the new smoking. At least, that is what the scaremongering moral panic pushing media would have you believe.

Unfortunately for the mainstream media, I’ve been around a long time and know this to be a very familiar pattern. Any time a competing medium pops up, the mainstream media responds by pushing the narrative about how it is warping your mind in some way. So, long debunked myths get pushed like how video games are going to turn you into a psycho killer, rock music was going to get you to start worshipping Satan, cell phone addictions are destroying your mind, or computer addiction is turning people into people who are unable to integrate into society. All of the above were, of course, complete nonsense, but at one time or another, these myths were, in fact, pushed. The pattern, of course, is that all of these are mediums that compete with mainstream media for attention. The media, in turn, pushed a moral panic in order to drive audiences back to them. Social media “addiction” was simply the latest riff of this tired old meme pushed by mainstream media.

Fortunately, there are researchers out there that are willing to look at these very issues from an objective perspective. Yes, there are those who are simply trying to reinforce stereotypes, but there are actual researchers dedicated to the science as opposed to pushing a narrative. Recently, researchers looked into the idea of social media “addiction” and whether or not it is actually overblown. As it turns out, the panic over social media “addiction” is, in fact, overblown by a wide margin. From Nautilus:

But does that mean we’re addicted in a clinical sense, or just indulging a bad habit?

The distinction matters, it turns out. While the United States Surgeon General warned in early 2023 that excessive use of social media can have neurological effects similar to substance abuse, for most people, the language of addiction is neither accurate nor helpful, according to a recent study by a pair of researchers from the California Institution of Technology and the University of California, Los Angeles. The findings were published in Scientific Reports.

The team ran two studies. For the first, they recruited 380 U.S. adults who used Instagram at least monthly and were representative of the larger U.S. population. Participants answered questions about addiction-like symptoms, such as withdrawal and life conflict, how “mindless” the behavior felt, and whether they personally described their use as an “addiction” or a “habit.” Then the researchers examined how those labels lined up with feelings of control, self-blame, and past attempts to cut back.

For those who are familiar with psychology, you can kind of get a sense of a major well known problem just with this opening. That problem is how inaccurate self-diagnosis can be. Self-diagnosis has led to all sorts of problems such as blaming 5G networks for all sorts of health ailments. This when a trained doctor can diagnose the actual cause of whatever ailment someone is suffering from. This is why when someone is suffering from an ailment, the common and reasonable advise is to see a doctor or other licensed medical practitioner to properly figure out what is going on.

If you’re thinking along those lines, then the results of the research probably shouldn’t come as a surprise:

The scientists found a stark mismatch: Eighteen percent of participants said they felt at least somewhat addicted, but only about 2 percent scored in a range the study defined as a warning sign for possible addiction risk. And the people who labeled themselves “addicted” didn’t just feel more out of control, they also reported more failed attempts to cut back and more self-blame.

In a second study, the researchers tested whether telling oneself an addiction story could actually cause these same feelings and behaviors. They recruited 824 daily Instagram users and randomly assigned them one of two different versions of a writing prompt. One group was explicitly told their use of Instagram might be “addictive,” drawing on language used in the U.S. Surgeon General warning, and then they were asked to assess their own feelings of control, self-blame, and attempts to cut back. The other group did the self-assessment first. Then the researchers compared the groups.

That short exposure to addiction framing was enough to nudge people’s mindset. Those who got the “addiction” prompt reported lower feelings of control, more self-blame, and a stronger desire to reduce their Instagram use.

The researchers argue this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: If you believe you’re addicted, you may assume your ability to stop is limited, which undermines your confidence and makes change harder. But if most overuse is characterized as habit, the solutions look less like a dramatic battle with the self and more like simple environmental engineering.

In other words, people who are told that their use is problematic (when in a large majority of the cases, they actually don’t) begin to panic. They try to cut back and because they are told it’s hard to cut back, they end up failing in their efforts and they feel hopeless. This despite their use is not even problematic in the first place. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people were finding that they were enjoying their time with social media and mistaking general enjoyment with problematic addiction.

So, why are so many people believing that their use is problematic when, objectively, their use isn’t problematic in the first place? The answer, the researchers found, was mainstream media pushing moral panics:

The study authors speculate that popular media are responsible for making people feel more addicted than they are. To test this hypothesis, they tallied the number of articles published across U.S. media using the phrases “social media addiction” or “social media habit” between November 2021 and November 2024. Addiction was the more common descriptor, they found, primarily driven by stories about lawsuits as well as by the May 2023 Surgeon General warning.

A small minority of users may truly have more serious, addiction-like symptoms related to social media use, the researchers point out. But for the rest of us, they argue, using “addiction” language can backfire, adding shame while steering people away from the most effective tools for change.

There it is. In plain black and white language, mainstream media was to blame for these problems. They push a moral panic of a rampant out of control problem of social media addiction and people who think that mainstream media can be trusted all the time without question start seeing their quality of life decrease because self-shame is pushed on them. Indeed, browse the headlines/sub-headlines and it’s not hard to find media outlets pushing this very moral panic:

Statistics of Social Media Addiction for 2025
As teen substance use declines, experts warn that excessive screen time and social media addiction are fueling a new mental health crisis parents can no longer ignore
Kids are addicted to social media. No one can agree on a solution
The questions of whether addiction to social media content has caused physical and mental health harm to users and whether social media tech firms designed their platforms to get users hooked lie at the heart of the court cases
Yeşilay, WHO target online gambling, social media addiction in Türkiye
N.S. educator discusses pitfalls of social media addiction for students
Low self esteem contributes to medical student social media addiction through chain mediation by academic Involution and anxiety

That is just a quick cursory look at news articles today. The mainstream media is pushing shoulder to the wheel on this notion that you are addicted to social media and social media addiction is out of control. Even more, they argue, the government needs to step in to stop this widespread problem because people just can’t stop. This is the mainstream media pushing this moral panic in action.

What’s more, this argument is being pushed to justify age verification on top of it all. It’s why children are sometimes brought up within these articles. They are pushing the narrative that social media must be cut off from all younger people because younger people are becoming highly addicted to social media and no amount of social media is safe for any of the younger demographics. As a result, age verification, they claim, is a logical first step to protect them from this widespread affliction.

The reality, obviously, is very different from the narratives pushed by the media. Is there such thing as social media addiction? Perhaps, but it is by no means anywhere near as widespread as they would have you believe. Even if you fall in the category of problematic use, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are permanently addicted by any means. One thing to keep in mind here is that human beings are social creatures. Talking to others is what we do. Communicating on social media is an extension of that ability to communicate. To try and pass off communicating online as some sort of inherently problematic behaviour is extremely disingenuous.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.