Year: 2024 | Month: September | Volume: 11 | Issue: 9 | Pages: 87-92
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52403/ijrr.20240910
The Psychological Challenges of Adolescent and Young Adult Social Media Overuse: Addiction of the 21st Century
Ilaha Sulduz Nabiyeva
PhD student, Department of Psychology, Baku State University
ABSTRACT
Along with the development of technologies, human beings live in the widest possible opportunities in terms of information exchange. This process is developing day by day. Communication between people is happening very fast nowadays. People are constantly exchanging information with each other. Social media has an invaluable role in making this exchange so fast. They share through their personal accounts and provide this exchange of information by forming personal communications. Social media accounts act as a personal virtual identity of people nowadays. People meet new people using information displayed in their profiles. The extent to which the information on social network reflects the truth is also related to the honesty of the profile owner.
Currently, young people and teenagers, which the world calls "Generation Z", use social media more. Through this, they satisfy their social and self-actualization needs. From this point of view, they have the most influence of social media. If we look back to the 80s and 90s of the last century without going too far, we will see that people belonging to the same age group met these needs by communicating live in real life. But now that is not the case. If families used to find it difficult to invite their children who were playing outside to eat in the evening, now it is difficult to invite them to the table because of the computer and telephone in their room. Teenagers, who were criticized for "not coming home from the outdoor" before, now do not "go out of the house" (İdris M.,2017).
Even this simple example is an indicator of the great change of our time. Social media tools work with certain algorithms that are programmed to find our interests. As the younger generation of users looks at the posts, a base is formed related to their interests, and the next flow of information is adjusted accordingly. This leads to the fact that young people and adolescents who are inclined to comfort and entertainment, and whose has not yet been fully formed, spend more time here. All this increases their attachment to the virtual space while weakening their real interpersonal relationships. Because here young people are not judged and are accepted as they are.
Keywords: personality, technology, virtual space, social media, needs, social media addiction
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