Effectiveness of Individual Psychotherapy Program for Information and Communication Technologies for Instagram Addiction

Abstract

Background: The status of effective therapeutic interventions has been highlighted by rising concerns about adolescent addiction to information and communication technologies (ICT), especially Instagram. Accordingly, the present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of the individual psychotherapy program for ICT addiction, focusing on reducing the severity of Instagram addiction and Instagram usage in adolescents. This study distinguishes between ‘addiction severity,’ which indicates compulsive behavior and psychological dependence and ‘usage duration,’ which measures the actual time spent on Instagram. Methods: This research was a pre-experimental study with AB (A [baseline] and B [intervention]) design. The statistical population includes adolescent girls from Karaj City, Iran, addicted to Instagram. Four girls were selected from 14 who were interested in participating in the research in the summer of 2021. The participants answered questionnaires on addiction to mobile-based social networks at the beginning of the treatment and during the treatment process. Each participant individually participated in 21 sessions of the psychotherapy program. Data analysis was done using statistical indicators (change in trend direction, median change, mean, reliability index, determination of overlap percentage, and improvement percentage). All calculations were done using SPSS software, version 25. Results: Visual analysis indicated the positive effect of the individual psychotherapy program for addiction to ICT on Instagram addiction. The results also showed a decrease in the number of hours of use of this application in all four adolescents. Conclusion: According to visual analysis, the study findings support the effectiveness of the individual psychotherapy program for ICT addiction in reducing the use of Instagram and the associated addiction levels among adolescents. However, it is crucial to consider the limitations of a single-subject design in generalizing the results and the assumptions required for inferential statistics. Therefore, these findings are preliminary and must be validated through larger-scale studies.

Keywords

• individual psychological intervention
• social media
• instagram addiction
• adolescent girls
• ab design