Raegan Kubisch

Novelty seeking drives social media addiction

Started May 28, 2025

Abstract or project description

For my project, I am investigating the relationship between novelty-seeking and social media addiction among adolescents. Novelty-seeking is a personality trait where individuals crave new and stimulating experiences often driven by brain mechanisms like dopamine release. Social media platforms constantly offer novel content—new videos, posts, and updates—which may particularly appeal to people high in novelty-seeking, potentially leading to addictive behaviors.

To explore this, I plan to conduct a small study using two established psychological scales: the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire-Revised (EATQ-R) to measure novelty-seeking temperament, and the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS) to measure symptoms of social media addiction. I will recruit adolescent participants and have them complete both questionnaires. My goal is to analyze whether higher scores on the EATQ-R correlate with higher scores on the BSMAS. This research could help explain why some adolescents are more vulnerable to excessive social media use and may contribute new insights to the field of behavioral addiction.