The Social Media Disorder Scale

1. During the past year, have you regularly found that you can’t think of anything else but the moment that you will be able to use social media again? Yes/1

2. During the past year, have you regularly felt dissatisfied because you wanted to spend more time on social media? Yes/1

3. During the past year, have you often felt bad when you could not use social media? Yes/1

4. During the past year, have you tried to spend less time on social media, but failed? No/0

5. During the past year, have you regularly had no interest in hobbies or other activities because you would rather use social media? Yes/1

6. During the past year, have you regularly had arguments with others because of your social media use? No/0

7. During the past year, have you regularly lied to your parents or friends about the amount of time you spend on social media? No/0

8. During the past year, have you often used social media so you didn’t have to think about unpleasant things? Yes/1

9. During the past year, have you had serious conflict with your parents, brother(s) or sister(s) because of your social media use? No/0

I got a 5 out of 9 for my score, which makes me a risky social media user. I think that the items on the scale could definitely be used to tell if someone uses social media too much. If you get into arguments about using social media to your family, it definitely looks like it’s an issue because if you’re not doing much with your family because you’re on social media too much, they have a completely valid reason to have an issue with your actions. I also think that if you have felt like you’re worthless when not being able to use social media, I definitely feel that you have an attachment to social media and should take some time away so that you can make sure that your life isn’t completely connected to social media and that you can spend time with someone without having the need to look at social media.

I think that different patterns are found across the world because there are vastly different lifestyles out there. There are lives who don’t have very much access to the cyber world, making it a very different way to answer this questionnaire, as well as other lives that don’t have access to social media at all. Some lives are forced to only use social media because they’re not able to do anything in the outside world, stuck inside or else they’d face consequences from higher ups. I also think that some have different patterns because their family restricts them from having access except during certain times of the day, making it harder to have a connection to social media.