Online usage
When do you become addicted to social media consumption?
Many don’t even realize how much time they spend on social media.
© Dean Drobot / Shutterstock.com
Smartphones and PCs are an integral part of life. But they shouldn’t dominate this. In this way, dependency can be avoided.
After getting up, check what’s new on Facebook and Instagram and after work, rather gamble for a few hours instead of meeting friends. More and more people are completely unaware of how much time they are now spending online. In his book “You belong to us” (Penguin Random House), the psychologist Christian Montag explains, among other things, how much media consumption is too much. In an interview with the news agency spot on news, he gives tips on how we can set ourselves limits.
How important are the internet and social media in our lives? And: what status should they actually have?
Christian Montag: The speed at which the Internet is spreading alone shows how important online technologies are in our digital society. Tim Bernes-Lee put the first HTML website online almost 30 years ago. Facebook was founded in 2004 and is not even of legal age. The first iPhone hit the market in 2007. Today, more than 60 percent of the world’s population is online and we have around four billion social media users. If these online technologies weren’t also meaningful, they wouldn’t have caught on so quickly. However, it is important to take a closer look: If online technologies meet basic needs such as communication, exchange and bonding, this is certainly to be assessed very positively. If, on the other hand, we are wasting more and more time online, among other things because platforms are taking more and more of our valuable attention due to their design, we must, in my opinion, take decisive countermeasures. Ethical design principles of online platforms are becoming an increasingly important topic.
In your book you report that we underestimate the length of time spent on online platforms. You yourself have spent three hours a day on your cell phone without even realizing it. What time should not be exceeded per day and how do you manage to keep it?
Monday: A basic rule for how much time you can spend online or on your smartphone in the interests of healthy use cannot be scientifically proven. It makes a difference whether I spend several online hours every day on research in the context of my work, whether I pursue further training online or if I pursue a computer game excessively. In other words, we first have to look at what online activity it is. And it is also true that the mere duration of the online sessions is not a good criterion for problematic smartphone or online use. It makes sense to personally set time limits that suit the demands of everyday life. By the way: In order to be aware of the time distortions, you can also set a kind of alarm clock on some platforms. It runs in the background and reports after the set time has elapsed.
How do you know that you are “addicted to mobile phones”?
Monday: First of all: The term smartphone addiction is highly controversial. After all, an alcoholic is not dependent on the bottle, but on the contents. Our studies showed that many people seem to think of their social media or messenger use when filling out a questionnaire about their own problematic smartphone use. In this case, we would rather talk about problematic social media or messenger use and not so much about the smartphone.
Nevertheless, the smartphone can be a gateway to the overexploitation of various online content. This ranges from problematic use of social media offers to disrupting computer games. Incidentally, the latter is officially recognized by the World Health Authority, which is not yet the case for social media use disorders – and also not for problematic smartphone use.
Criteria by which one could determine problem behavior in one’s own online use are the loss of control over one’s own use and that the use of online content is maintained even though there have already been negative consequences in everyday life. The use of online content is so much in the foreground that other important everyday things hardly take place. In order not to rashly pathologize everyday actions, it must also be observed that one’s own online use results in significant impairments. Does a romantic relationship break due to online behavior or does someone put their job at risk due to excessive online behavior?
How do you manage to recognize such an addiction and how do you get out of it?
Montag: In fact, it is not so easy for many of those affected to reflect on their own consumption with the necessary objectivity. This also has to do with the fact that we sometimes no longer notice how much time we spend online: Tech platforms have been developed over many years in such a way that they are as immersive as possible, i.e. they have an absorbing effect. We lose our sense of space and time on these platforms. For this reason, every user can ask himself or herself the question of whether he or she shows a tendency to overuse online content in light of the symptoms mentioned. Of the above-mentioned criteria, the clearly visible impairments in everyday life due to my own online use seem to be a warning signal to me personally. For example, if a young person puts their apprenticeship at risk because he or she can no longer break away from computer games. In this case, it is important to get help from professionals. Incidentally, a diagnosis such as a computer game disorder or media addiction should be made by trained staff such as psychological psychotherapists.