Scroll Zombies: How Social Media Addiction Controls our Lives

Sven Rollenhagen

Scroll Zombies

How Social Media Addiction Controls our Lives

Translated by Karin Shearman

SAGA Egmont

Scroll Zombies: How Social Media Addiction Controls our Lives

Translated by Karin Shearman

Original title: Scrollzombies – hur beroendet av sociala medier styr v ra liv

Original language: Swedish

Cover design: Johan Leijon

Copyright © 2019, 2022 Sven Rollenhagen and SAGA Egmont

All rights reserved

ISBN: 9788728371114

1st ebook edition

Format: EPUB 3.0

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievial system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor, be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

www.sagaegmont.com

Saga is a subsidiary of Egmont. Egmont is Denmark’s largest media company and fully owned by the Egmont Foundation, which donates almost 13,4 million euros annually to children in difficult circumstances.

The mobile phone has become the remote control for our lives.

Anna Wikland, Head of Google Sweden

1. Introduction

Almost everyone does it. Presidents and common citizens. Most of the people you know and probably even you. Children and adults on their way to work and school. Whilst waiting for a bus, in the bathroom or in the middle of a meal. We all look down at a screen, scrolling like zombies through the flow of social media. Cat videos, advertisements, sunsets, news, memes and selfies. It all flickers past in a flash. Often we don’t even think about what we are doing. It happens automatically as soon as we get the chance.

The mobile zombie is deeply absorbed in its phone. It walks around clutching it in its hand and can bump into someone or walk into a lamppost. I used the term mobile zombie in my previous book about the dos and don’ts of mobile use. The scroll zombie is closely related to the mobile zombie. It appears when you are aimlessly scrolling through your flow on social media. There is no real reason behind your actions – your fingers move automatically on the screen. Sometimes you become completely absorbed by the screen and your surroundings become irrelevant.

Social media takes up a large part of everyday life for most of us. The subject affects all of us and our opinions differ. Many people I have spoken to feel that social media takes up too much time in their lives and interferes with other activities. As an addiction expert, I have had the chance to help these people create a balance in their digital lives. I meet people who take regular detox breaks, but I have also met those who do not care at all about their use of social media. They would rather be left alone from what they see as moral preaching.

I am a social worker and have worked with dependency issues since the eighties. Over the last few years, I have specialized in different types of digital addiction, mainly video games, social media and mobile phones. I have carried out some pioneering work on video game addiction, now a who -recognized diagnosis. I have helped many people regain control over their gaming and use of screens. Many of these people now have a functioning life with work, family and, what I choose to call, good digital health.

These days, I see a more mixed type of screen addiction in my patients. Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat are competing with homework and sport. Many of my clients are adults whose work, relationships and spare time are affected by social media.

I, myself, play video games and I am an avid user of social media. I have a positive view on technology and a curious attitude towards all things digital. Throughout most of the time writing this book, I have been active on social media. I have used what is known in sociological research as participant observation. This means that the person studying a phenomenon does not do it from an external perspective but participates in the activity being observed. This has provided me with invaluable information as a compliment to my extensive experience in treating people.

Writing about digital issues is a challenge. This is because, by the time you read this, I expect the availability of platforms and technology for social media will have changed and will look somewhat different. But I am convinced that, even though the shape of addiction can change, there will always be characteristics of dependency that are timeless.

I have previously written books on video game addiction and mobile phone etiquette. Parallels may also be drawn to this type of addiction. In this book, my focus is on our conflicting relationship to social media. I have interviewed researchers, talked to friends and relatives as well as other people I have met in daily life about their views on social media. Additionally, this is a book built upon personal reflections and thoughts.

In this book I shall keep referring to my own life on social media. About how I was engulfed by, above all, Facebook, a realization that I was hooked and about how I broke free. This journey is described at the end of the book under the headline How I got stuck online and created a digital balance. Maybe you will recognize yourself in my experiences, be inspired to create your own digital balance, or you can choose to see it as a thought-provoking subject.

I see my own use turning into an addiction as a strength. Because I know what I am talking about when the pressure to be active online feels like a compulsion. But today I have come out of my addiction and formed a healthier relationship with my digital life.

I deliver this book from three different perspectives. That of the addiction expert, that of the person who, himself, has suffered from an addiction, and the third perspective, that of the parent. My children grew up in the middle of the digital revolution and, to begin with, I had no understanding of my children’s digital interest. But, together with my own use of social media, I have gained a better understanding and insight into this modern way of socializing. There is, as yet, no clinical diagnosis called social media addiction. The topic is relatively new and uncharted even though there is ongoing research. However, the term social media addiction is already used widely all over the world. It describes the state where people seem to lose control over their use of social media. Since it is a simple and clear term, I will also use it.

My view of social media is pragmatic. I take people’s experiences of dependency-causing phenomena seriously, but I believe that social media can be a source of both good and evil. I have existential and holistic values, which means that I believe you yourself have the possibility to shape large parts of your life by the choices you make. What you have for breakfast, whether you smoke or not, whether you exercise or are inactive – and how you choose to live your digital life. I believe body and soul are intimately connected. If you exercise your body, you will feel better psychologically. If you are depressed, your physical health can also suffer. Life is a constant balance between physical and psychological health. In my work, I take an optimistic view on change. Even if you are in a negative dependency, there is always the possibility to stop and initiate a change. The choice is yours.

2. Our lives online

The digital revolution

The digital revolution is an ongoing process. What was previously analogue has become more and more digital; payment solutions, medical technology, entertainment, navigation and communication. More and more platforms are appearing, making possible smooth dialogue between people. This is where social media has an important function to fill.

We spend more and more of our time on social media. Some of the biggest platforms are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp and YouTube. Here we broadcast our lives, sharing everything from simple day-to-day events to weddings and funerals. Social media is open round the clock, all year round, providing information to more than three billion users across the world.

What social media do you use?

Which ones do you like the best?

Is there any platform that you feel creates problems to you?

The coin has three sides

At the beginning of the digital revolution, the discussions about social media were mainly positive. There was talk of a new and fantastic way of socializing that gained more and more followers. The debate about the downside of social media has not been going on for as long. The first time that I spoke publicly on the subject was in the Swedish national newspaper Aftonbladet in 2009. It was an article about young people’s Facebook habits, about how students were becoming hooked on Facebook, ignoring homework, mealtimes and other important activities.

In the last few years, media has increasingly picked up on what is commonly known as social media addiction. The importance of Facebook and other similar platforms in people’s lives becomes clear as soon as there is a technical issue. People may despair and show symptoms of withdrawal. I remember once when it happened to me. I was posting something in a group and received an error message. At first, I thought I had poor internet coverage, but the connection was fine. Shortly afterwards I received a message saying that there had been a technical fault affecting Facebook and other platforms. When I asked friends about their reactions, many said that it had stressed them out, which it had me too. The disruption only lasted for a short while, but long enough to make me realize that I had become so used to my feed that it stressed me out when it stopped.

Research into social media is still in its infancy, which is not particularly surprising. The problems are new, and research takes time. A single study is not sufficient. It is only long-term and collective large-scale research that can lead to real and stable conclusions. The internationally renowned researcher, Mark Griffiths, summarizes the current situation well: There is still a lack of large-scale qualitative studies.

This lack of reliable studies has led to a partly polarized debate in the media. Initially, there were two dominant groups. One group was technology-friendly and focused on lifting the positives of social media. This group took the view that the discussions surrounding the negative effects were no more than a moral panic in response to something new and unknown. Once we became used to it, the worry would diminish, in the same way as we had previously got used to rock music and violence in movies – phenomena which caused concern from the start but which subsided once we realized that it did not turn people into lunatics. Their solution was to embrace the new technology with open arms.

Then there were those people who wanted to paint a darker picture. Their view was that the radiation emitted from mobile phones was deadly and that we would never be able to learn how to handle modern technology. One example was that of someone falling over a cliff because he was staring down at his mobile. This was an extreme case that was presented as something that could happen to anyone, but of course this was not a typical everyday occurrence. This group was in favor of rewinding time to the days of analogue technology.

Important milestones for social media

I can still see one-sided reporting where social media is either raised positively or is one-sidedly criticized, but this is starting to change. More and more people seem to take a more balanced view on these phenomena. Many people, me included, want to bring forward all the different sides of digital technology, the positives, negatives and everything in between. This more nuanced group includes everyone from practitioners like me, researchers and users themselves. Doesn’t it make sense to be open to the coin not having just one side, but three?

I have spoken to one of