9: Myspace Addict

Apparently not everyone is addicted to facebook. I noticed over the summer, that my single young coworkers preferred myspace (maybe we’re the facebook generation?). Granted, the employees maintained professionalism and never accessed the site at work, but one coworker in particular, “Bob,” always talked about it – whether it be the new people he met online, or what his friends were saying – to the point that it sounded like a real place where he was meeting people.

According to Wallace, myspace has the properties of the internet and individual differences mentioned in chapter 9. Operant conditioning, where a behavior is rewarded with a variable schedule, occurs on myspace when Bob checks his profile and sees that he has a new message. Maintenance of virtual presence is used when he displays selective characteristics of himself on his profile that he wants people to see. One, especially important aspect of myspace that he values most is locus of control, the degree to which he believes he has control over his circumstances. Since Bob is entering his late thirties and hasn’t been successful in finding a companion in the face to face realm, he has turned to myspace for help. According to Davis et al. (2002), Bob’s myspace use falls under loneliness and social comfort. Since Bob is shy, and fears rejection, he uses the internet as a tool to increase his social network, but this does not necessarily predict his internet use as problematic. Granted, he doesn’t compulsively check myspace, but based on Caplan’s theory, he has the potential to let is become problematic because he has negative perceptions about his social competence and prefers the less threatening characteristics of the internet. However, he has not allowed his online interaction to become an excessive and compulsive habit, which is where he breaks the cycle and prevents the negative outcomes from PIU.

The affordances of myspace are what mainly attract Bob to prefer online interaction. As discussed in the Hyperpersonal Model, in general, the internet offers greater anonymity, greater control, and more self-disclosure. For Bob, less social risk is probably the most important affordance that myspace has to offer because it relieves his psychosocial problem of social competence. With respect to myspace, it can be addictive because you can see peoples’ profiles, friend’s comments, view their friends, and see when was the last time they logged in to determine if they saw your message and if they did, why they did/didn’t reply. These aspects are open to all users, but not all of them have PIU, so for myspace to become an “addiction,” there are probably more inherent psychosocial problems in the individual that bring about the compulsive use.

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