Almost Half of Teenagers Feel Addicted to Social Media

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by Yahoo! Finance.

Almost half of teenagers feel as if they are addicted to social media, according to analysis.

The early findings from a study being carried out at the University of Cambridge were described as “striking”, with researchers saying that some people’s relationship with social media could be “akin to a behavioral addiction”.

The Cambridge team is analyzing data from the Millennium Cohort Study, which is being carried out by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) at the University of London.

It is following the lives of more than 18,000 babies born in the UK between 2000 and 2001 to map the backgrounds of children born in the early 21st century.

Cambridge researchers found 48% of 7,022 people surveyed agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “I think I am addicted to social media”.

The data was collected between January 2018 and March 2019, when the cohort was 17 years old.

The total who answered that they feel addicted included a higher proportion of girls (57%) compared to boys (37%).

University of Cambridge graduate student Georgia Turner, who led the analysis, said: “We’re not saying the people who say they feel addicted are addicted. But it’s not a nice feeling to feel you don’t have agency over your own behavior, so it’s quite striking that so many people feel like that.”

Ms. Turner’s work is ongoing and has not been peer-reviewed or published formally.

Source: Yahoo! Finance
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/almost-half-teenagers-feel-addicted-092618251.html