Are you addicted to Instagram?

Instagram is a wonderful app that can be both beneficial and detrimental to your health. It allows you to easily share pictures of your life with friends and family and take advantage of its marketing potential, provided you know how to do it right.

Instagram addiction is a new and growing phenomenon that many people around the world are regularly facing. While researching the topic, we found that there is very little information available that systematically describes what Instagram addiction actually is and how you can measure it. Take the below test to find out if you have got one. 

What is Instagram Addiction?

In recent times, the Internet and related addictions have become very popular among clinical psychologists. They say people affected by Internet addiction are increasing day by day. Internet addiction means to have the same pattern as drug addiction and alcoholism. Internet addiction can bring in the negativity as drug addiction in individuals.

The development of the internet has brought various online platforms into individual lives, such as social media and social networking sites. This triggers different motives and variations in use, and the tendency of individuals to use them excessively has addiction on the internet.

Instagram addiction is one such internet-related addiction that has been affecting individuals more in recent times. The majority of people worldwide who are staying online often spend several hours of a day on social media alone. Social media, which is meant to connect families and friends, are now detaching people from families due to addictive behavior. Social media addiction is nothing but a behavioral addiction diagnosed as overuse of social networking sites, uncontrollable drive to log on to it, and spending more no. daily hours in social media, which affects other aspects of life.

Attractive Instagram features like feeds, stories, and reels become the perfect medium to show your daily life. They indirectly urge their users to share photos and videos. This is very possible to cause excessive use, which will eventually lead to complaints. Internet Addiction Scale is a psychometric tool used to measure the intensity of Instagram addiction in individuals.

The connection between Self-esteem and Instagram addiction:

Internet addiction or any Social media addiction basically negatively affects an individual’s mental health and peace. One factor that may underlie the negative effects of social media addiction is self-esteem. You may be surprised by how social media platforms like Instagram can affect your self-esteem. But it is true when you watch the feeds on Instagram, at some point, you tend to feel everyone other than you are happy and successful in their life. So the frequent use of Instagram can gradually reduce your self-esteem.

Many studies have shown that low self-esteem is associated with many psychological dysfunctions such as depression and anxiety. Self-esteem has also to be positively associated with academic performance and serves as a protective factor against adversities in aiding academic and emotional resilience.

What is the Instagram Addiction Scale?

Instagram Addiction Scale is a measure used to identify addictive behavior on Instagram. Instagram Addiction Scale (IAS) was developed using a modified version of Internet Addiction Young. This Instagram Addiction Scale is an instrument consisting of 20 questions; the core o the questionnaire is based on the symptoms of Instagram addiction that affect individuals' daily lives. The 20 questions of the Instagram Addiction Scale are compiled based on addiction components 1) Salience; 2) Mood modification; 3) Tolerance; 4) Withdrawal; 5) Conflict; and 6) Relapse.

The 20 questions are measured against five standard response categories of “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly Agree.” This scale was used to identify the behavior of addiction

on Instagram users in the feed context. This scale is used to measure Instagram usage patterns in different parts of a person from woke to his/her bedtime.

Scoring of The Instagram Addiction Scale:

The scoring of the Instagram Addiction Scale is straightforward. The five standard response of 20 questions is measured against a five-point Likert scale. So a value of 1 is assigned to “Strongly disagree” and 5 to “Strongly Agree.” The value for each question is given according to the response; the overall score of the scale is given by summing-up the values of all the 20 questions. The Score ranges from 20 to 100.

Based on this score, an individual is categorized into three levels of addiction: Low Instagram addiction, Medium, and high.

Conclusion

A 2018 study found that teens who spend 5 hours per day using their phones were almost twice as likely to exhibit depressive symptoms than counterparts who dedicated only 1 hour to their phones. Social media had already filled each and every space of the internet, making the next generation addicted and prone to serious mental health issues like depression and other mental disorders. The digital era has given us some extraordinary development but at the cost of damaging the basic structure of humanity that is “Health.”

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