Youth and Social Media Comportment: A Conceptual Perspective

Abstract

The rise in social networking sites (SNS) has inevitably instilled addictive behaviors amongst its users causing social media addiction. Social media addiction has since been found to be a bigger problem to the current society as it causes certain users to develop disorders and compulsive behaviors which leads to negative effects. In view of this, social media addiction and social media disorders has since been the focus study amongst academicians and researchers. This conceptual paper will discuss about the relationship between social media addiction and social media disorders among Malaysian youths. To investigate this relationship, several dimensions for social media disorders are defined such as preoccupation, tolerance, withdrawal, persistence, escape, problems, deception, displacement and conflict. Furthermore, the mediating effect of loneliness will also be evaluated on the relationship between social media addiction and social media disorders. Eventually, this article will propose a conceptual framework which links social media addiction, social media disorders and loneliness. Literature content for all the variables are included in this study to provide context for better understanding and future roadmaps into empirical study of this paper would be provided towards the end of this article.

Why social media use is so attractive among young people in the 21st century?

“…In fact, mirror neurons are the reason why social media is so attractive to young people. The system works like this: People imitate a person or people they love and care about, and this is actually related to the fact that we are social creatures (Baskaran et al, 2017). This is why young people have a more developed sense of empathy, especially during the transition to adulthood.…”

A study of components of behavioral addiction to social media use in current generation of Pakistani youth.

“…19,20 Social media addiction has also been studied within the framework of these components. 22,23,24,25 For the purpose of this research, we have calculated the incidence of six components of addiction in the youth of Pakistan: Conflict, Mood Modification, Relapse, Salience, Tolerance and Withdrawal.…”