Before taking a look at this scale, I thought to myself that I wouldn’t have a stake in this matter because while I use social media, I don’t use it frequently. I scored relatively low on the scale only answering “yes” to one question “Have I ever had a serious conflict with someone I’m in a relationship with over my social media use?” Having answered “No” to every other question would lead me to believe that I don’t have a social media disorder. However, the fact that this exist implies that there are people out there that would have answered “yes” to most if not all of these questions.

The items on the scale are mostly good questions to ask the average person about their social media usage. A good mindset to have about most things is to “Take everything in moderation” which seems to be the premise for the questions are asked in the scale. While these are good points to make when asking someone about their addiction to social media, I think a lot of the questions can be asked about anything else if you exchange the word “social media” with something else. For example “Regularly found that you can’t think of anything else but the moment you can use Alcohol again?” or “Tried to spend less time on Heroin but failed?” These questions make the point of checking a persons general addiction to something; I believe this system can be improved by tailoring the questions more towards social media specific options.

Different patterns of usage can be found across the world because different societies place different values on social media. In North America, social media is used as a way to gauge a persons social ability, a way to engage with friends, an advertising platform, a means of income, or various other things. It’s almost unavoidable because everywhere you go or no matter what you do for a living, social media has more than likely made its way into your life. Now take China or Russia for a different example where social media is heavily monitored, or regulated. Social media addiction cases would be pretty rare due to the unavailability of it. There are places where the populations lifestyle is more more heavily weighted on the actual time spent socializing with people rather than seeing how many virtual people you can get to follow you.