Development of an Offline-Friend Addiction Questionnaire (O-FAQ): Are most people really social addicts?
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Development of an Offline-Friend Addiction Questionnaire (O-FAQ): Are most people really social addicts? Liam P. Satchell 1 & Dean Fido 2 & Craig A. Harper 3 & Heather Shaw 4 & Brittany Davidson 5 & David A. Ellis 6 & Claire M. Hart 7 & Rahul Jalil 8 & Alice Jones Bartoli 9 & Linda K. Kaye 10 & Gary L. J. Lancaster 1 & Melissa Pavetich 11
# The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2020
Abstract A growing number of self-report measures aim to define interactions with social media in a pathological behavior framework, often using terminology focused on identifying those who are ‘addicted’ to engaging with others online. Specifically, measures of ‘social media addiction’ focus on motivations for online social information seeking, which could relate to motivations for offline social information seeking. However, it could be the case that these same measures could reveal a pattern of friend addiction in general. This study develops the Offline-Friend Addiction Questionnaire (O-FAQ) by re-wording items from highly cited pathological social media use scales to reflect “spending time with friends”. Our methodology for validation follows the current literature precedent in the development of social media ‘addiction’ scales. The O-FAQ had a three-factor solution in an exploratory sample of N = 807 and these factors were stable in a 4-week retest (r = .72 to .86) and was validated against personality traits, and risk-taking behavior, in conceptually plausible directions. Using the same polythetic classification techniques as pathological social media use studies, we were able to classify 69% of our sample as addicted to spending time with their friends. The discussion of our satirical research is a critical reflection on the role of measurement and human sociality in social media research. We question the extent to which connecting with others can be considered an ‘addiction’ and discuss issues concerning the validation of new ‘addiction’ measures without relevant medical constructs. Readers should approach our measure with a level of skepticism that should be afforded to current social media addiction measures. Keywords Measurement . Social addiction . Social information . Social media addiction . Social time . Validation
Introduction The role that technology plays in modern life continues to provoke debate in academic literature and across popular
media (e.g., Stieger & Lewetz, 2018; Twenge, 2017). Social media remains core to many of these concerns as it has radically changed the way we socialize. For example, social networking sites and online messaging
We note that Dean Fido, Craig Harper and Heather Shaw are considered equal second authors. All other authors are arranged alphabetically. * Liam P. Satchell [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, University of Winchester, Sparkford Road, Winchester, Hampshire SO22 4NR, UK
2
College of Business, Law and Social Sciences, University of Derby, Derby, UK
3
Department of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
4
Department of Psychology, Lanc
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