The rapid changes in the nature of digital media presents a challenge for those who study digital addiction. Various social networks and computer games might be popular now, but they could be irrelevant in a few years. A new tool developed by researchers from Binghamton University, State University of New York will make it easier for clinicians and researchers to measure digital media addiction as new technologies emerge. 

Daniel Hipp, PhD and Peter Gerhardstein, PhD from Binghamton Univ. collaborated with the Digital Media Treatment and Education Center in Boulder, Colorado in developing the Digital Media Overuse Scale, or dMOS. The goal of fMOS is to allow clinicians and researchers who are using the tool to be free to make their investigations as broad (i.e. social media) or as granular (i.e. Instagram) as they want for their particular use. Rather than focusing on the technology the focus is the behavioral, emotional or psychological aspects of an individual’s experience.

To test the Digital Media Overuse Scale, the researchers conducted an anonymous survey with over 1,000 college students to investigate clinically relevant behaviors and attitudes as they relate to five digital media domains: general smartphone use, internet video consumption, social media use, gaming, and pornography use.

They found the following: 

• A majority of students demonstrate few indicators of addiction or overuse 
• Use patterns were highly targeted to specific domains for specific users.  
• A select set of students’ responses indicated attitudes and behaviors around digital media use that, if they were derived from drug use or sex, would be deemed clinically problematic.  

The researchers found that overuse is “not a general thing” but more specific, and typically reported in one or a few domains only. Broadly speaking, the data paint a picture of a population who are using digital media substantially, and social media in particular, to a level that increases concern regarding overuse.

Initial indications are that the Digital Media Overuse Scale is a reliable, valid, and extendible clinical instrument capable of providing clinically relevant scores within and across digital media domains, wrote the researchers.

Reference: Hipp, D., Blakley, E. C., Hipp, N., Gerhardstein, P., Kennedy, B., & Markle, T. (2023). The Digital Media Overuse Scale (dMOS): A Modular and Extendible Questionnaire for Indexing Digital Media Overuse. Technology, Mind, and Behavior, 4(3: Fall 2023). https://doi.org/10.1037/tmb0000117