| ddictive disorders are a public health crisis that affects our society by draining our workforce, health care, judicial, education, and law enforcement, resources. Adolescents are particularly susceptible to social influence---for better and for worse---and addiction. Through social media, today's youth experience a whole new way of communicating. Not enough is known about adolescent perceptions of addiction, and messages of addiction they are exposed to on social media. Social Learning Theory and the Learning Theory of Addiction provided the framework for understanding how adolescents are at risk for developing unhealthy practices that create numerous psychological, social and physical problems in adulthood. Concurrent, mixed-methods, were used to explore adolescent perceptions of addiction and Instagram hashtags related to addiction. A content analysis of Instagram hashtags related to addiction and interview data from 11 adolescents aged 16-18 from a Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) club in New Jersey was collected and analyzed. The sample for phase one of this study was comprised of 819,155 Instagram posts, hashtagged... |
