Problematic attachment to social media: lived experience and behavioural archetypes.

Abstract

Social media are widely used by people to help satisfying personal and social needs. Examples include the enhancement of self-image, self-esteem, complementarity, relatedness and popularity. However, the relationship with social media can become problematic and lead to hurt various aspects of life, including wellbeing, psychological and emotional state and sociability. Existing literature provided evidence that obsessive and excessive use of social media can be associated with behavioural addiction symptoms such as conflict, mood modification, salience, tolerance, withdrawal and relapse. Research has also shown that social media can be equipped or augmented with tools to help users who are willing to change their problematic attachment behaviour. Designing such behaviour change tools can be challenging because people differ in their problematic attachment to social media. Unlike existing literature, which focuses on understanding the psychological correlates of social media activity and reasons that facilitate attachment. This thesis aims to explore the real-world experience of people who have a problematic attachment to social media and the role of social media design in such attachment. In order to achieve the goal of the thesis, multi-phase qualitative studies with people who experienced problematic attachment have been conducted. This helped to achieve a deep understanding of the role of social media in facilitating problematic attachment and reveal emotions and psychological states associated with it as well as the social media design features which contribute to triggering such states. The findings emerged through multi-phase qualitative studies helped developing user archetypes characterising how people differ in their problematic attachments to social media. These behavioural archetypes are intended to help the design process of software-assisted solutions to keep a healthy relationship with social media. The thesis evaluates how the archetypes can help a design team communication and engagement and aid a more creative and efficient design process.