Social Media Addiction Symptoms among Adolescents in India during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed Method Research Exploration

Technology has grown fast and encompassed all realms of life faster than one could dream of a few decades back. One of the key by-products of the World Wide Web was the development of social media which created a virtual world, parallel to the real world. People met, interacted, and socialized in this virtual environment for the good. But with the emergence of many platforms, opportunities, options, and attractions, this particular technology gradually started dominating them and finally, people are now driven by this. With the Covid-19 pandemic shutting people inside rooms with just gadgets as their only companions and closing the physical world on them, social media has gradually become an addition, rather than a necessity which in fact should supplement our daily engagements in the real world. Adolescents were the biggest casualties of this vicious circle. Based on mixed methods this study aims to qualitatively and quantitatively explore the symptoms of social media addiction among adolescents in Kerala, a southern province of India. It seeks to analyze to what extent it impaired their lives amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. The initial group of 432 students was given data sheets and 187 were shortlisted with high-level SMA through the SMAS-SF test. The final sample size consisted of 17 adolescents. As there is no sufficient research done in this area, particularly in this geography, and not enough literature available, the findings of this particular study call for more detailed and extensive research.