Social media addiction and attention deficit and hyperactivity symptoms in high school students in Bangkok

Abstract

Objective : To assess the prevalence and related factors of social media addiction, and association between social media addiction and attention deficit/ hyperactivity symptoms in high school students in Bangkok

Method : A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted. Data were collected from parents and students in high schools in Bangkok. The sample size was 601 subjects. Total 428 questionnaires were sent back.  The study was conducted between January and March 2016. The questionnaire consisted of three sections. First section included questions involving demographic data and patterns of social media use. Second section is social media addiction test (SMAT). Third section is Thai version of SNAP-IV rating scale, parent version.

Results : Prevalence of social media addiction in high school students in Bangkok was 17.6 percent. From data analysis, social media addiction was associated with attention deficit/hyperactivity symptoms. In multinomial logistic regression analysis, not having attention deficit/hyperactivity symptoms decreased the chance of social media addiction but found no statistically significant. In addition, statistical significant factors that can decrease the chance of social media addiction are amount of time that spent on social media less than 4 hours per day, not using Instagram, and not using social media for sharing messages/pictures and relieving stress.

Conclusions : This is the first study examining the association between social media addiction and attention deficit/hyperactivity symptoms in Thailand. Our study found that social media addiction was associated with attention deficit/hyperactivity symptoms. Not having attention deficit/hyperactivity symptoms decreased the chance of social media addiction but found no statistically significant. However, we found many factors that can decrease the chance of social media addiction. These data are important and can use for establishing guidelines to control social media use, especially in adolescents, who are vulnerable to developing social media addiction.

Keywords : Social media addiction, Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Adolescent