Assignment:

Complete the Social Media Disorder scale. How did you score? What do you think about the items in the scale? Why do you think that different patterns are found across the world?

Answer:

When looking at the 9 items on the scale I cannot agree with any of the statements, meaning I scored a 0/9. 

I believe that the items in the scale ask questions about serious usage of social media, which if any can be answered yes to the person that agreed to a statement is unhealthily using social media. It also shows how much social media can affect a person’s daily life, whether it would be neglecting hobbies or other things you enjoy, or if it is about having a discussion with their friends or family about their usage of social media. Essentially the Social Media Disorder scale is trying to figure out how addicted a person is to social media and I can luckily say that I am not addicted to any kind of social media platform. However if I were to also look at playing video games as a type of social media then I might be addicted. 

Nowadays though the majority of people have an addiction to social media and sometimes you can even see it in public. For example two people are presumably having a date however both of them are on their phones scrolling through a social media platform. Thankfully not everyone is like this because everyone has their own individual personality. 

This is the reason why there are so many different patterns found across the world. Another reason different patterns are found across the world might be due to the individual’s definition of “Social Media”. When I first took the quiz I didn’t think of gaming as social media, however when I thought about it more I did see gaming as a type of social media and did the scale again, and when I did my score went from a 0/9 to a 2/9.