Time Spanish Youngsters Spend on Social Media and Why: Signs of Addiction

Abstract

This research evaluates the time spent by the Spanish youth on social media and their reasons for spending most of the day connected to social networks. An interview was conducted with 572 Spanish individuals aged 15–26 years, and it was found that youngsters spend, on average, 5.5 hours a day navigating through social media. The most frequent reasons stated by the interviewees include sharing pictures or videos and staying updated on their connec-tions on a daily basis. Although many of them believe they are addicted to social media, they are very reluctant to change their habits. Furthermore, the results of the article show that youngsters mostly focus their attention on a few platforms, mainly those owned by Meta, thus favoring the dominant positions of a few large technology companies in terms of controlling the attention market.