Facebook Addiction - New Psychological

Scale
Last reviewed: Monday 22 June 2015
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Researchers in Norway have published a psychological scale to measure Facebook

addiction, the first of its kind worldwide. They wrote about their work in the April 2012
issue of the journal Psychological Reports. They hope that researchers will find the new
psychometric tool useful in investigating problem behavior linked to Facebook use.

However, an accompanying article suggests a more useful approach might be to

measure addiction to social networking as an activity, rather than addiction to a specific
product like Facebook. This is particularly relevant given that Facebook is now more than a
social networking site (for instance users can watch videos and films, gamble and play
games on the site) and social networking is not confined to Facebook.

The new measure is called the BFAS, short for the Bergen Facebook Addiction
Scale and is the work of Dr. Cecilie Andraessen at the University of Bergen (UiB), Norway,
and colleagues. Andreassen currently leads the Facebook Addiction research project at
UiB.

In their paper, Andraessen and colleagues describe how they started out with a pool of 18
items made up of three items for each of the six core elements of addiction: salience, mood
modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse.
In January 2011, they invited 423 students (227 women and 196 men) to complete the draft
BFAS questionnaire, along with a battery of other standardized self-report scales of
personality, sleep, sociability, attitudes towards Facebook, and addictive tendencies.

Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale

Eventually, Andraessen and colleagues finalized the BFAS to six basic criteria, with
participants asked to give one the following 5 responses to each one: (1) Very rarely, (2)
Rarely, (3) Sometimes, (4) Often, and (5) Very often:

1. You spend a lot of time thinking about Facebook or planning how to use it.

2. You feel an urge to use Facebook more and more.

3. You use Facebook in order to forget about personal problems.

4. You have tried to cut down on the use of Facebook without success.

5. You become restless or troubled if you are prohibited from using Facebook.

6. You use Facebook so much that it has had a negative impact on your job/studies.

Andreassen and colleagues suggest that scoring "often" or "very often" on at least four of
the six items may suggest the respondent is addicted to Facebook.

They found that various personality traits related to the scale: for instance neuroticism and
extraversion related positively, and conscientiousness related negatively.

They also found that high scores on the BFAS were linked to going to bed very late and
getting up very late.
Facebook Addiction
Andreassen has clear views on why people become addicted to Facebook. She told
the press that she and her team notes it tends to happen more among younger than older
users.

As of April 2012, Facebook has over 900 million active worldwide users.

"We have also found that people who are anxious and socially insecure use Facebook more
than those with lower scores on those traits, probably because those who are anxious find it
easier to communicate via social media than face-to-face," says Andreassen.

The Norwegian team also finds that people who are more organized and ambitious tend not
to become addicted to Facebook, and are more likely to use social media as an integral part
of work and networking activity.

Andreassen says they find women tend to be more at risk of developing Facebook
addiction, something they attribute to the social nature of Facebook.

Dr Mark D Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies in the International Gaming Research

Unit at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, writes a response to the study in the same
issue of the journal.

In a personal blog about his response, he says that while he had no problem with the study
by Andraessen and colleagues, he wished to comment more widely on doing research into
Facebook addiction.

Griffiths says the BFAS most likely arose from a need to help researchers who require a
psychometrically validated tool for investigating problematic use of Facebook, and as such it
will clearly be useful.
But in his view, the field of Facebook addiction now has to move on and keep pace, and in
doing so needs to address several points.

For instance, there is a need to address social networking as an activity, separate from
Facebook, which is a commercial product of which social networking is just one aspect.
People now go on Facebook to gamble, play games like Farmville, watch films and videos,
swap photos, message friends, and update their profile.

Another point Griffiths makes is that we need to clarify what it is that people on social
networks are really addicted to, and what, for example, a Facebook addiction tool is really
measuring. The BFAS may only be applicable to Facebook, and not for example to other
social networking sites such as Bebo, which is popular with young teenagers.

With the fast pace at which electronic media and sites that started primarily for social
networking, are changing and offering an increasingly varied number of activities, Griffiths
suggests the term "Facebook addiction", like "Internet addiction" may already be obsolete.

There is a big difference between addictions on the Internet, and addiction to the Internet,
he adds, and the same argument now holds true for Facebook, as it does for mobile
phones.

Thus, what is needed now is a psychometrically validated tool that specifically assesses
"social networking addiction", rather than Facebook use, says Griffiths. As an example, he
points out that the BFAS does not distinguish between addiction to Farmville, and
constantly messaging Facebook friends.

Written by Catharine Paddock PhD

Copyright: Medical News Today
This article was first published on Fri 11 May 2012 and last reviewed on Mon 22 Jun 201