A narrative Overview About Psychosocial Characteristics as Risk Factors of a Problematic Social Networks Use

Elisa Wegmann, Matthias Brand
2019 Current Addiction Report  
Purpose of Review Social networks use disorder describes the problematic use of social networking sites and onlinecommunication applications. Social characteristic of social networks use emphasizes the special relevance of psychosocial factors and social cognitions in this context. The current review aims at summarizing findings on individual psychosocial characteristics to analyze the relevance of social processes as potential mechanisms of a social networks use disorder. Recent Findings The
more » ... pirical overview illustrates that, aside from psychopathological factors, individual psychosocial characteristics and social cognitions as well as their interactions appear to be relevant risk factors for a problematic use of social networks. However, empirical findings are mixed. Summary We propose two hypotheses on the development of a potential social networks use disorder that might account for mixed results: the fear-driven/compensation-seeking hypothesis including compensatory use expectancies and the reward-driven hypothesis including positive use expectancies as key elements, both of which could lead to symptoms of social networks use disorder depending on interindividual differences in predisposing and reinforcing factors. Introduction The worldwide distribution of the smartphone is a success story since different estimations illustrate that one-third of the world population has mobile Internet access resulting in a distribution of 2.7 billion smartphones all over the world [1]. Some of the most relevant smartphone applications are onlinecommunication applications such as instant messenger services, social networking sites, blogs, and microblogs, often summarized as online social networks. These applications allow users to be connected and to communicate with others, to entertain oneself, or to share information, pictures, and videos [2, 3] . The use of these applications is often associated with positive effects on different domains such as subjective selfawareness, subjective well-being, the process of identity development as well as on communication skills, which is a result of positive interactions, perceived social support, and feelings of social connectedness [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] . Besides these positive effects, there is growing research about negative consequences and disadvantages due to the use of online social networks such as cyberbullying, technostress, and the excessive or addictive use of those applications [9] [10] [11] . The addictive use of online-communication applications or online social networks could be defined as "being overly concerned about social networking sites [or onlinecommunication applications], to be driven by a strong motivation to log on or to use social networking sites and to devote so much time and effort [...] that it impairs other social activities, studies/job, interpersonal relationships and/or psychological health and well-being" [9, 12, p., 4045]. In the past, researchers used different terms to describe the potential addictive use of
doi:10.1007/s40429-019-00286-8 fatcat:pgoqj7swbng3tgj56ltxrlj3x4