Mis-promise Of Technology: A Cross-Cultural Investigation Of Social Networking Addiction In China, Malawi And UK

In recent years, the world has witnessed explosive growth of computer-mediated communication technologies, the most prevalent being social networking sites. Studies have shown that some users of social networking sites, especially young people, exhibit addictive symptoms. More studies are now beginning to pay attention to the addictive nature of social networking sites, attempting to understand if this form of addiction is different from other forms of behavioural addictions, and what this phenomenon entails in quest to conceptualise the relationship between society and technology. Due to the infancy of this field, most studies are undertaken within particular disciplines of study and within particular cultures. This thesis undertakes an inter-disciplinary approach to investigate differences in motivation for and addictive use of social networking sites among three cultures, Eastern (China), African (Malawi) and Western (UK). The study contends that questions of technological addictions can be investigated within a theoretical framework that is informed by Philosophy, Neuroscience, Psychology and Cultural studies.The study firstly employs qualitative and quantitative methods to develop a scale, the Social Networking Addiction Scale, for assessing social networking addiction. It then uses quantitative methods to investigate differences in social networking addiction, motives for social networking and predicting factors of social networking addiction in the three cultures. A number of statistical techniques are performed, including correlational analyses, one-way analysis of variance, multiple linear regression analysis, principal components analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to analyze the data.The study found that participants from Malawi scored higher on social networking addiction and its factors than participants from the other two samples. Further, the study found that entertainment, as a motive for social networking was similar in all the three cultures. The results also showed that participants from China and Malawi significantly scored higher on social motives for using social networking sites, thus, social support and seeking friendship, than participants from UK. In addition, the study found differences in factors predicting social networking addiction among the three cultures. Interestingly, number of friends on social networking sites predicted social networking addiction in Malawi only; frequency of making friends on social networking sites predicted social networking addiction in UK only; and frequency of posting on social networking sites predicted social networking addiction in China only.These results reveal the cross-cultural nature of the problem of social networking addiction. They also demonstrate the pharmacological nature of social networking sites and technology in general, thus, technology as both poisonous and curative; as well as the shifting cultural trends, thus, the fluidity and blurriness of the collectivistic-individualistic divide. The study results, if extrapolated further, also denote the dynamic nature of relationship between society and technology, thus, technology-society relationship being dynamic and technology being a condition of this dynamism.Although the study might have been limited by the reliance on quantitative data, the findings from the study have contributed to the understanding of cultural differences in social networking addiction and motives for using social networking sites. Further, the scale, the Social Networking Addiction Scale (SNAS) developed in the study is an important tool for assessing social networking addiction, more importantly as it can be used in different cultures. Future inter-disciplinary studies are required to comprehensively investigate more factors associated with social networking addiction in different cultures by employing qualitative or mixed methods.