Islamabad, JAN 24, (ONLINE): Regular use of social media sites like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook can cause huge amounts of stress which, scientists say, can fuel addiction to the sites.
Social networking platforms are known to generate so-called ‘technostress’ among users.
This is not enough to make users ditch the site, but often just makes users use the site in a slightly different way instead.
If this next activity causes more stress, the person again just flips to another social media action,browsing the news feed, messaging etc.
This vicious circle then raises the risk of these people becoming embroiled in an internet web and becoming addicted.
IT and management expert Monideepa Tarafdar of the Lancaster University and colleagues examined the habits of 444 Facebook users.
They looked at various forms of technostress that can be caused through the use of social media — including the feeling that the sites were invading users’ lives, that users were receiving too much information and that the site was always changing.
Alongside this, the team also explored two different principle approaches to handling technostress from social networking.
The first involved users that sought diversions from social media itself — such as through logging out of Facebook, spending less time on the platform or discussing the sources of their stress with friends or family.
The other response — which the researchers found was more common among frequent Facebook users — involved diversion through different activities within the same social network platform.
‘While it might seem counter-intuitive, social media users are continuing to use the same platforms that are causing them stress rather than switching off from them,’said Professor Tarafdar.
This, she added, creates ‘a blurring between the stress caused and the compulsive use.’
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