Facebook is more dangerous for women

Women are more likely to become Facebook addicted than men, according to Norwegian researchers studying addiction to the social network.

Psychologists at the University of Bergen in Norway interviewed more than four hundred students to find out if they were showing signs of addiction to the social network. In the course of the investigation, some respondents clearly identified a type of Facebook addiction similar to drug or alcohol addiction, the online edition of The Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday. Researchers say younger people are more easily addicted to Facebook than older ones, and women are at higher risk of addiction than men.
Anxious, socially insecure people are more attached to the social network, which researchers have attributed to the fact that it is probably easier for them to use Facebook than to communicate face-to-face with someone. It has been found that people with extroverted personalities are also more likely to become addicted to Facebook, while well-organized, ambitious people are less exposed to this risk, as they use the site primarily for work and relationship building. Social networking sites have now become an indispensable part of business, they are the private face of a company.

The Bergen researchers also set up a scale based on the symptoms of Facebook addiction. Six criteria were graded on a scale from one to five, where the lowest grade was defined as "very rarely" and the highest grade was defined as "very often". Distinctive features included urges to use Facebook excessively, unsuccessful self-restraint in using the social networking site, and anxiety when one does not have access to one's Facebook page.
The characterization of "often" or "very often" collected in the four criteria can already indicate Facebook addiction, stated the authors of the study published in the journal Psychological Reports.

Source: MTI