Problematic Attachment to Social Media: Lived Experience and Emotions

Abstract

People's relationship with social media and their contacts on them can be problematic. People may engage in social media in a compulsive and hasty style to increase their popularity, reputation and enhance their self-esteem. However, this problematic attachment to social media may result in side effects on people's well-being. Therefore, people may need assistance to reform their relationship with social media in a way that it maintains different aspects of their online interaction, such as empathy with others and maintaining their popularity and relatedness. In order to provide the tools and methods to support people in reforming their relationship with social media, towards a healthier usage style, we need to understand the experience of people who suffer a problematic relationship with them. Most studies on the topic are based on methods which would lack ecological validity, e.g. using surveys and interviews, and do not capture or imitate such a digital experience as lived. In an attempt to better explore how people experience problematic attachment and relationship with social media, and their associated emotions, we conducted a multistage qualitative method study including a diary study to gather lived experience. We aim to inform both users and designers towards a managed and tool-supported reform of their problematic relationship with social media and, ultimately, having a healthier online interaction.

Problematic Attachment to Social Media: Five Behavioural Archetypes

“…See Appendix A for more details on the studies and the analysis results carried out in the first phase. Part of the result is published in [73,74].…”

“…The findings resulting from previous phases and our earlier studies of behaviours associated with problematic attachment to social media [73,74] enabled the researchers to assess, validate, and refine the five main behavioural archetypes, i.e., the Secure user, the Intimate user, the Escapist, the Narcissist, and the Discrepancy user based on the analysis of data from a sample of 51 participants, as explained below. This process could lead to a final version of such behavioural archetypes being developed based on qualitative analyses of the responses made by the participants, which were supported by quantitative analysis, to reflect the reality in mathematical terms and provide a detailed description of these archetypes.…”

“…We utilised Parrott’s framework [77] to differentiate between primary, secondary, and tertiary emotions. The components of this section of the behavioural archetype were based on our previous research results in [73] on the relation between usage experiences and emotional states for people with problematic attachment to social media.Psychological states and examples: common user experiences and examples of associated psychological states. The components of this section of the behavioural archetype were based on our previous research results in [74] on the relation between usage experiences and psychological states for people with problematic attachment to social media.…”

Problematic Attachment to Social Media: the Psychological States vs Usage Styles

“…The rapid expansion in the use of social media has prompted academics to examine its impact. Recent studies advocate that social media can have both positive and negative impacts on users [3,5].…”

When People are Problematically Attached to Social Media: How Would the Design Matter?

“…The number of active Facebook users stood at 500 million in 2010 but had increased to 2 billion by 2018 [3]. This rapid expansion has prompted academics to examine its impact on the population with recent studies [4][5][6] advocating that social media can have both positive and negative impacts on users.…”