James Cook University researchers have taken a deeper dive into the complexities of human personality traits and addiction in adults, revealing new insights to help with social media addiction and internet gaming disorder.
Led by JCU in Singapore's Associate Professor of Psychology Peter Chew the research was published in International Journal of Social Psychiatry.
The study is the first to use a broader set of personality characteristics to examine social media addiction (SMA) and internet gaming disorder (IGD) amongst adults in the general population, rather than adolescents.
"The main purpose of our research is to inform preventive efforts, so that we can help people before they have full blown addictions," Prof Chew said.
Psychology researchers typically use a set of five traits to define human personality characteristics that influence addiction. Prof Chew's research used a larger set of characteristics, and was able to identify distinct differences between risk factors for adults and adolescents.
"For adults, it is depression and emotional volatility, whereas in the previous study of adolescents, anxiety was the most important predictor for SMA," Prof Chew said.
"This underlies the importance using a broader set of personality characteristics, so you see these differences … leading to better preventive programs."
Defined as uncontrollable and excessive use of social media, SMA leads to impairment in important life domains, like work and relationships.
IGD - defined as prolonged internet gaming - results in progressive loss of control over gaming, and tolerance and withdrawal symptoms that are analogous to substance use disorders.
"For both addictions, addicts spend so much time in virtual worlds they don't have enough time for the real world … so loneliness is a common consequence," said Prof Chew.
"The friends made in games and social media are superficial ones and not enough to help with connection and loneliness."
Social media addiction and internet gaming disorder can impact as many as 3-6 per cent of the population, with adult women and adolescent males respectively, being most vulnerable to the conditions.
Prof Chew's research surveyed 246 adult social media users and gamers and found the big risk factors for social media addiction are depression and emotional volatility, or moodiness.
"To help these individuals we need to have programs to address those risk factors, so that they are less likely to engage in social media," he said.
"Equipping people with emotional regulation strategies means they'll be less likely to use social media as a way to escape, or as a way to regulate their negative emotions."
However, for internet gaming disorder Prof Chew determined that risk factors are things like respectfulness, trust and responsibility.
"Individuals who are responsible are less likely to compromise their work and other things for gaming," he said.
"If you have programs to build up things like respectfulness and responsibility, individuals would be less likely to be addicted to gaming."
