Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale

Abstract

The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS) was designed to operationalize the extent to which behavioral addiction symptoms may be linked to social networking sites. The BFAS has shown face validity in its items reflecting behavioral-addictive symptoms, such as using Facebook to forget about personal problems or trying to cut down on time spent on Facebook without success. When compared to the similar construct of “problematic Facebook use,” which also considers preference for online versus face-to-face social interactions in addition to compulsive behavior, the BFAS and the problematic Facebook use scale showed strong, positive associations. Some debate has been raised surrounding the applicability of BFAS to other social networking sites outside of Facebook, arguing that Facebook addiction could be generally applicable to Internet addiction or online social interaction compulsions because there are many activities that a person can engage in on the Facebook website.