Interview Results

Interview Results

Participant #51

Participant 51 was the first to be interviewed; he completed the survey before being interviewed but did not consent to provide his social media screen time. Some general themes and attitudes that were common in this interview are the following: social media generally has a negative impact on his life; fear of missing out (FOMO) is what ties him to social media; he believes he has qualities of social media addiction.

This participant stated that social media has been more prevalent in his life since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. This is partly because he uses it for communication and social purposes and partly because he uses it more during online classes than during in-person classes.

This participant also highlighted that fear of missing out is a big reason he feels tied to social media. When presented with a hypothetical scenario about all social media being inaccessible for the day, he expressed that it would have an extremely positive effect on his life. If nobody else has access to social media, he does not feel like he would be missing out on anything and would be less inclined to miss it.

When presented with a definition and explanation of social media addiction, he expressed that he feels as though addiction is a spectrum and that he has certain qualities of social media addiction and may fall somewhere along the spectrum. A comparison between his survey answers and his interview answers to determine the likelihood of social media addiction can be found below in the Comparisons section.

Participant #58

Participant #58 was the second interviewee. She completed the survey and consented to participate further in the study by providing daily screen time logs and doing a follow-up interview. Being a student and part-time employee, this participant indicated that she uses social media for both work and school purposes. She is most active on social media during weekdays more than weekends, as it is easier to turn to her social accounts as a way to procrastinate during her classes, as opposed to in a work environment. Although she finds herself using social media the most when she’s supposed to be doing other things, her survey results reveal that she is not dependent on social media and tries not to base her day around it.

When presented with a hypothetical scenario about all social media being inaccessible for a day, she explained that while she might initially be affected, it would not be the end of the world. She values more functional sites such as Gmail or Blackboard and would be more affected if they were down for a certain period of time. Contrary to the first interviewee’s FOMO as a cause of social media attachment, this participant expressed that she does not feel a need to keep up with what is trending, and instead prefers to use apps such as TikTok, that require minimal amounts of direct social interaction.

As a result, she believes that social media generally has a positive impact on her mental health and overall quality of life. She defines social media addiction as “feelings of physical and emotional discomfort anytime you are not around your phone”.  With this definition in mind, she states that she would not consider herself addicted to social media, but rather a frequent, but responsible, user of certain social media platforms for mainly entertainment purposes.