Are you spending too much time scrolling through social media or playing video games?
It’s a question that’s becoming increasingly important in our digital world.
Researchers from Binghamton University in New York have developed a new tool that makes it easier to figure out if someone’s digital media use is becoming problematic.
This tool, called the Digital Media Overuse Scale (dMOS), is a big deal because it can keep up with the fast-changing world of technology.
We all know how quickly popular apps and games can come and go. Just think about how TikTok and Fortnite have become huge recently. The dMOS is designed to stay relevant even as new technologies pop up.
Daniel Hipp, who led the study, worked on this project with his former Ph.D. advisor, Professor Peter Gerhardstein. Hipp, a 2015 Ph.D. graduate from Binghamton University’s Infant and Child Studies lab, is now a research consultant at the Digital Media Treatment and Education Center in Boulder, Colorado.
Hipp and Gerhardstein noticed that current methods for studying digital addiction were outdated. They often focused on specific technologies that might not be popular anymore.
To solve this, they came up with the dMOS, a set of flexible questions that can be tailored to whatever digital media is currently in use.
For example, one of the questions in the dMOS is: “I have trouble stopping myself from using X even when I know I should.” The ‘X’ can be replaced with any digital media, like social media, gaming, or even new tech that hasn’t been invented yet!
The team tested the dMOS with a survey of over 1,000 college students, looking at their use of smartphones, online videos, social media, gaming, and pornography. Here’s what they found:
- Most students didn’t show signs of addiction or excessive use.
- People’s digital media use was very specific. For example, someone might overuse social media but not video games.
- A small group of students showed patterns of digital media use that would be concerning if it were about drugs or sex.
The results show that digital overuse isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ issue. Most people might use digital media a lot, but only in certain areas, like social media.
The dMOS seems to be a reliable and useful tool for clinicians and researchers. It can help them understand and measure digital media overuse across different platforms and as new technologies emerge.
The researchers are now expanding the dMOS to include two more tech areas in a follow-up study. They’re also working with other experts to better understand how digital media affects our psychology.
Their paper, titled “The Digital Media Overuse Scale (dMOS): A Modular and Extendible Questionnaire for Indexing Digital Media Overuse,” was published in a special edition of the journal Technology, Mind, and Behavior.
This tool could be a key step in addressing the growing concern of digital addiction and helping us manage our screen time better.
