INCREASING numbers of people are losing control of the time they spend on Facebook. With more than a billion users worldwide and access to the social networking site has also increased with smartphones and 3G/Wi-fi networks becoming commonplace in recent years.
Now researchers in Norway have identified six signs that you may be addicted to Facebook. They’ve used those signs to develop a test to help you figure out of your suffer from a social media addiction.
The study shows that the symptoms of Facebook addiction resemble those of drug addiction, alcohol addiction, and chemical substance addiction.
Doctor of Psychology Cecilie Schou Andreassen says the study is the first of its kind worldwide. Andreassen heads the research project Facebook Addiction at the University of Bergen (UiB).
The test, called the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale, is based on six basic criteria, where all items are scored on the following scale: (1) Very rarely (2) Rarely (3) Sometimes (4) Often and (5) Very often. The signs are:
1. You spend a lot of time thinking about Facebook or planning how to use it.
2. You feel an urge to use Facebook more and more.
3. You use Facebook in order to forget about personal problems.
4. You have tried to cut down on the use of Facebook without success.
5. You become restless or troubled if you are prohibited from using Facebook.
6. You use Facebook so much that it has had a negative impact on your job/studies.
