Social Network Misuse in Black African Subjects: Results of the Application of the Facebook Addiction Scale to 1000 Students in Ivory Coast

Abstract

With the popularization of digital tools in Black Africa, the observation of the problematic use of Facebook raises questions about the emergence of new forms of behavioral addiction in a socio-cultural space that seemed to be spared from it until now. In conducting this descriptive cross-sectional study of 1000 black students at the University of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, our objective was to investigate behavioral addiction to Facebook among black African users of this digital social network. The results of the study revealed that in 28.3% of the cases, the daily connection time exceeded 5 hours with extremes of more than 8 hours (9.4%). Our respondents showed psycho-emotional and behavioral disturbances related to the connection to Facebook. These were: insomnia with phase delay (32.3%), irritability in the absence of connection (3.3%), narrowing of physical social interactions (8.3%) and neglect of one's needs (2.3%) in favor of Facebook use. The application of the Facebook Addiction Scale found a prevalence of problematic use at 11.8% in this study population. Given the problematic use of this social network, the hypothesis of the existence of an addiction to Facebook is supportable regardless of the socio-cultural area. The presence of signs of behavioral addiction, the psycho-emotional disturbances attributable to the regular use of this tool in some users and the suffering expressed by them, illustrates it pertinently.