The Causes, Effects, and Interventions of Social Media Addiction

Abstract

Social media addiction (SMA) has become a more serious problem for people when they are engaging in their social life with parents, siblings, and friends. The goal of this review is to go over previous studies that focused on the potential factors that cause SMA and how these factors make people vulnerable to such addiction. The review also summarizes the effective treatments for SMA, comparing their advantages and disadvantages. Through the review, neuroticism is proved to contribute to the high level of SMA, and the level of well-being is also responsible for the negative correlation with SMA. Several effective therapies are effective in treating addiction, including two parts: self-intervention and therapeutic methods. Self-intervention uses apps and self-control, or self-restrictive plans, to cut people’s addiction to certain software. therapeutic methods, CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), and motivational therapy. Both therapies aim to change the mental state of the patient, which would lead to less addictive behavior. Role models are also found to be useful for curing addiction. Yet there is no clear evidence that one therapy is superior to the others, and the selection of therapy should depend on the actual circumstances.