A new study suggests many Instagram users are misdiagnosing themselves as addicts, and paying a psychological price for it.
In research published in Scientific Reports, psychologists Ian A. Anderson and Wendy Wood analyzed data from 1,204 American adults to see how often heavy Instagram use actually qualifies as a behavioral addiction. They compared users’ self labels with clinical style symptom scales and then tested what happens when people are prompted to think of their scrolling as an addiction rather than a habit.
The answer is surprisingly simple and surprisingly unsettling. True addiction looks rare. The addiction story, however, is everywhere.
Addiction or just a habit?
In their first study, the team recruited a quota based national sample of 380 active Instagram users, matched to the U.S. adult population on gender, age, politics, and race. Everyone completed the Bergen Instagram Addiction Scale, a symptom checklist adapted from a widely used social media addiction measure, as well as questions about how strongly they felt their Instagram use was an addiction or a habit.
Clinically, addiction is not just using something a lot. It involves a cluster of problems: urges and withdrawal, failed attempts to cut down, conflict with work or studies, and using despite harm. On that symptom scale, only 2 percent of Instagram users landed in the at risk range, showing frequent experiences of multiple symptoms. Even among people using Instagram about an hour or more every day, just 5 percent were flagged as potentially addicted.
Self perception told a different story. Eighteen percent of users at least somewhat agreed that they were addicted to Instagram, and 5 percent strongly agreed. More than half of those who felt strongly addicted did not meet the symptom threshold that the authors used as a warning sign. In contrast, about half of the sample described themselves as habitual users.
Habits showed up everywhere. Frequent use was tightly linked to habit strength, the sense that opening the app feels automatic, something you start doing before you fully notice. And when the researchers pulled symptoms apart, a clearer boundary emerged. Withdrawal, life conflict, and repeated failures to cut down were strongly tied to feeling addicted and largely unrelated to feeling habitual once the addiction label was accounted for.
For most users, in other words, Instagram looks less like a compulsion and more like a deeply grooved routine.
How media feeds the addiction story
So where does the gap between symptoms and self diagnosis come from? Anderson and Wood suspected the media environment. The paper notes that the U.S. Surgeon General has publicly likened excessive social media use to addiction, and that lawsuits have framed platforms as addictive products.
To see how often that language shows up, the researchers turned to Buzzsumo, a media engagement tracking tool. Between November 2021 and November 2024, they found 4,383 U.S. news articles containing the phrase “social media addiction” and only 50 using the phrase “social media habit.” Articles using addiction language also drew more engagement on platforms like Facebook, X, Reddit, and Pinterest.
In this landscape, addiction becomes the default word for heavy use. Users scrolling through news and commentary encounter that framing again and again. It is not hard to see how that drumbeat could make a late night scrolling habit feel like a diagnosis.
The cost of calling yourself addicted
The second study tested what that label does to people in real time. Here, 824 daily Instagram users were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. Everyone first answered questions about symptoms and habit strength. Then, some participants read language modeled on the Surgeon General’s warning and were asked to write a brief reflection about times they felt addicted to Instagram. Others completed the same reflection task only at the end of the survey.
That short exercise worked. Users who reflected on being addicted reported higher levels of self described addiction than those in the comparison group, even though their underlying symptom scores did not differ.
It also carried a cost. Compared with the control condition, those prompted to think of themselves as addicted reported lower feelings of control over their Instagram use, more failed attempts to cut back, and greater self blame for overuse. They were more likely to blame the app as well, and they more strongly wished they used Instagram less often.
The effect sizes were modest, but they emerged after just a couple of minutes of addiction framing. The paper suggests that repeated exposure to the addiction narrative in everyday media could have a much larger cumulative impact on how people feel about their own behavior.
“Applying clinical concepts to children’s everyday behavior does not help support them in developing healthy screen time habits.”
That line, quoted from a UNICEF report and highlighted in the paper’s conclusion, is aimed at children’s screen use. But the authors argue that the same logic applies to adults scrolling Instagram at the end of a long day. Calling routine behavior an addiction may stigmatize it, sap people’s confidence, and steer them toward treatments designed for a very different problem.
Habits, not pathology, for the vast majority
The data still leave room for genuine trouble. With more than 100 million Americans using Instagram, even 2 percent at risk would represent a sizable number of people who may need serious help. And the authors acknowledge that their estimates might be inflated by the surrounding media narrative.
For the vast majority of users, however, the story is less dramatic and more hopeful. Heavy Instagram use often reflects strong habits cued by notifications, boredom, or routine. Those habits can clash with people’s goals, but they are also changeable with strategies that alter cues, introduce friction, or build alternative routines.
The study’s message to policymakers and media outlets is blunt: use the word addiction sparingly and accurately. Overusing it risks moral panic, wastes public health resources, and clouds the distinction between everyday habits and clinical disorders. For users, the takeaway may feel even more personal. If you are not actually addicted, you may have more control than you think.
Journal: Scientific Reports
Article: Overestimates of social media addiction are common but costly
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-27053-2
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