Varsity students getting addicted to social media, experts now warn

A team of psychologists has warned of increasing addiction to social networking sites among university students in Nairobi.

The psychologists at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa say the excessive use of social networking sites by university students in Kenya is alarming.

“Data shows this has already led to some students developing addiction to online social networking,” they say in a study published last month in the African Journal of Clinical Psychology. “This is supported by statistics showing that university students are spending too much time on social networking sites,” says Dr Stephen Asatsa, a psychology lecturer at the university and study co-author.

The research led by Virginia Nyagah involved 385 students and their counselors from seven universities in Nairobi County. The study involved two public universities, two private universities sponsored by a church and three private universities not sponsored by a religious institution.

Demographic differences

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“Our aim was to investigate demographic differences in online social networking addiction among undergraduate university students in Nairobi,” says Asatsa.

Asatsa describes social networks addiction as spending too much time on sites such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat among others “so much that it interferes with other aspects of daily life.”

Online social networking addiction, the psychologist says is often associated with neglect of basic drives, being tensed, being withdrawn and loss of sense of time, feelings of anger and depression when they cannot access networking devices.

“We made several unsettling and alarming findings,” says Asatsa. More female students, the study says, were found to be addicted to online social networking compared to males. The authors suggest this difference may be because some sites encourage more female’ use compared to males.

“Females are found to post more photos compared to males. As a result, they keep checking their accounts for likes. If they find more likes, they post more and as a result they become addicted,” he said.

Unlike females who are fond of posting photos, the study says males use social networking sites in other ways like watching YouTube videos. First Years, were the most addicted with Fourth Years the least addicted, says the study.

“Fourth Years had the lowest mean probability for addiction maybe because at that stage they are more dedicated to their studies.” There were more students in private church sponsored institutions addicted to social networks compared to those in public universities or in private non-church sponsored institutions.

Further findings showed students who spend more than six hours online were most addicted to the online networking sites.

“The more time one spends on a social networking site per day, the more likely they will be addicted,” says Asatsa.

Almost all university students have one or several social networking accounts, with the most popular being WhatsApp followed by Facebook, then Instagram.

The social networking site account owned by the least number of respondents was Snapchat, followed by Twitter, then You Tube.

However, the study says Snapchat had the highest risk of addiction with the least found in WhatsApp. The team is recommending that university students be enlightened on healthier ways of using social networking sites to avoid addiction.

An earlier study by Elizabeth Gichovi, then at the University of Nairobi, found disruptive use of cellphone by teenagers in three estates and two schools in Ngumo, Nairobi.

Of 187 study respondents 102 were teenagers, most who had started using mobile phones before age 12; Facebook was the most dominant social media site, with 40 per cent turning to the site when depressed.

“Alarmingly 20 per cent of the respondents started using the mobile phone before the age of 10, with the youngest being only six years. Eight six per cent were reported to sleep with the phone under the pillow,” says the study.