Is social media an addiction?

 Almost 60 percent of American adults think they spend too much time on their phones, and social media represents one of the biggest time sucks: On average adults spend more than 2 and a half hours on social media sites like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram every day, while teenagers clock nearly double that. All that scrolling, as we know, can leave people feeling sad and anxious, sleeping badly, doing poorly in school, getting little done at work, and neglecting friends and family.

So is attachment to social media an addiction? Many psychologists and public health figures think so, based on criteria used to diagnose other forms of addiction, such as internet gaming addiction. But no formal diagnosis exists, and studies of the effects of digital “detox”—disconnecting from the offending activity or substance for a defined period of time, a standard tool in addiction studies—have been mixed. Now a small but thoughtful new study in PLOS One calls into question whether addiction is the right term for heavy social media use, and suggests digital detox, at least over the short term, may not have much impact on mental health at all.

“I think ‘addiction’ is the wrong word to use,” says Durham University psychologist Michael Wadsley, co-author of the study [with Niklas Ihssen] . “Social media can certainly be problematic and people can use it in harmful ways, but I think we should be careful not to over-pathologize behavior as an addiction.”

Wadsley and Ihssen found no evidence of the kinds of withdrawal-like effects people typically experience when they suddenly discontinue use of an addictive substance or activity. The “detox” didn’t have positive effects on participants’ well-being, either. Overall, the social media pause didn’t yield much change in mood or motivation at all.