After completing the Social Media Disorder Scale (SMD) I found that I scored a zero. Speaking for myself, I work in a secure office environment, and during most of my working day I do not have access to social media because of physical security policies and computer use rules. I have to leave my phone in my car and the proxies and network rules on our workstation inhibit access to social media websites. At home, my hobbies and leisure activities are not online, and I communicate with my family and friends directly on the phone or through text. Growing up, I did not really have internet.
I think that the items on the scale are reasonable ways to measure adolescent addiction. Even though the questions did not apply to me, I can easily see how American children and teenagers could score 1 or more points with how interconnected their lives are. Schoolwork is online, teens communicate with their friends and foster their relationships using social media and often their hobbies are online with the proliferation of online videogames. It would only make sense that with such high presence in their lives, the online world would impact their emotions and cause conflict or distress.
I think the scale isn’t applicable for all people around the world because their life patterns can often be less involved in cyberspace. Much like how I had and have near zero exposure to the online world, patterns of living in other countries differ from the US. However, this is rapidly changing. Tools like the SMD are becoming more and more relevant as the reach of social media and the Internet of Things grows.