Author: linaworden

Group Interactive Learning Resource: The Addictive Nature of Social Media 

Group Name / Pod: Emily Findlay, Anna Smolik, Lina Worden
Submission Format: Google Docs

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1. Overview

Topic Definition
Our topic is social media and the impacts it has on young people. The main concept is the addictive design of social media. Social media platforms are intentionally engineered to keep users engaged through features like infinite scrolling, push notifications, and algorithmic content curation, this stimulates dopamine responses and creates compulsive use patterns (Montag et al. 2019). This can have negative effects on youth, and cause a decrease in life satisfaction (Giumetti & Kowalski, 2022). “The overuse of social media can actually rewire a young child or teen’s brain to constantly seek out immediate gratification, leading to obsessive, compulsive and addictive behaviors,” says DeAngelis.” (Miller, 2022). This can increase mental health issues in teenagers, overall social media can cause harmful impacts on individuals that cause lasting effects.

Common Misconceptions

• That social media is used for fun and doesn’t affect certain people. 
• That social media isn’t addictive.  
• That social media doesn’t affect your mental health or mood. 

Rationale
We choose to do our project on social media because we are interested in the impacts, especially since we are psychology and sociology majors. Also because we are close to social media everyday and it plays an important role in development. Our goal is to be able to create meaningful ways to educate the generations to come on how social media can be negative or how to use it for purposeful reasons rather than just because it’s there. 

Learner Context

• Target audience: High school and undergraduate students.
  
• Background: Background varies mostly those who use social media frequently, whether they are aware of the effects or not.
• Learner needs: Could be visual or hearing disabilities and learners that speak a different language, who may need visual presentations or simple vocabulary to understand.
  

Hosting Platform

Scholarly articles through Uvic library, textbooks and tools such as WordPress, Etherpad, moodle, etc. 

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2. Learning Theory & Design

Theoretical Foundation
Behaviourism guides the design: learning is supported through repetition, reinforcement, and immediate feedback to improve correct understanding and positive behaviors. The concepts about the addictive nature of social media are introduced clearly, practiced through activities, and reinforced with feedback to shape the learning outcomes. For example, LO1 is a multiple choice quiz that returns instant feedback which supports behaviour change. This supports behaviourism by letting learners instantly monitor their progress showing them if they understand the material. With this instant feedback they can quickly adjust and progress for the next material. 

Learning Design Approach
A stimulus-response approach structures activities so that learners are taught how to identify the addictive features, practice healthy habits, and receive reinforcement to applications of learnings. Frequent formative assessments, clear criteria, and consistent feedback, ensures that new behaviours are practiced and reinforced. 

Inclusion Strategy (UDL/Cast)

• Textual explanations paired with audio narration and captioned videos to support diverse learning preferences.
  
• Interactive tasks in multiple modalities (written reflections, visual mapping, and verbal sharing) to engage different processing styles.
  
• Scaffolded supports such as guided questions, sentence starters, and habit-tracking templates to help all learners succeed.

Technology Rationale

• H5P quizzes and interactive scenarios: with instant feedback to reinforce correct recognition of addictive features (supports LO1).
• Jamboard or Google Doc: with instant feedback to reinforce correct recognition of addictive features (supports LO1).
• Video with captions + transcript: accessibility and to model strategies for intentional social media use (supports LO3).

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3. Structure of the Resource

Essential Question	Learning Objective	Content / Resources	Interactive Activities / Formative Assessment
What is the addictive nature of social media?	LO1: Understanding Addictive Features: Define and recognize the addictive nature of social media	Short video + infographic with definitions & scenarios	Multiple choice quiz: defining definitions, and core concepts (LO1 duration: 45 minutes)
How can I build habits to not be drawn to the addictive nature of social media?	LO2: Building Habits and Reflecting on Social Media: Apply planning‑reflecting strategies to build habits to not use social media as much	Habit building steps and resources from other interventions	Formative: create a pamphlet as if you were promoting an intervention to reduce the use of social media (LO2 duration: 3-4 hours)
How can I overcome the feeling of boredom and FOMO while making my social media use intentional?	LO3: Applying what you’ve learned to real life scenarios: Respond adaptively to different scenarios of social media use	Case studies: scenarios where others are facing addictive social media use	Everyone share a moment where they were using social media due to addictive features and then respond to each scenario with a strategy(LO3 duration: 2-3 hours)

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4. Assessment Plan

• Formative Assessments
  
  • H5P quiz with instant feedback (aligned with LO1)
    
  • Jamboard reflection shared in pods and facilitator feedback (aligned with LO2)
    
  • Peer-feedback activity on response strategies (aligned with LO3)
    
• Summative Assessment
  
  • Final reflective blog post (Google Doc embedded): students describe a personal challenge, demonstrate application of growth mindset and metacognitive strategies, and reflect on what they learned.
    
  • Evaluation rubric includes:
    
    • Accuracy of growth mindset and metacognition concepts (LO1)
      
    • Quality and specificity of self‑planning and reflection (LO2)
      
    • Thoughtfulness in applying adaptive responses (LO3)
      
• Grading and Feedback
  
  • Format: Pass/Partial/Fail or percentage (e.g. 20%)
    
  • Instructor provides written formative feedback on Jamboard reflections
    
  • Final blog post returned with rubric‐based evaluation and written comments
    
• Reliability & Validity
  
  • Alignment between essential questions, objectives, content, and assessments ensures construct validity
    
  • Use of clear rubric and simple, consistent criteria supports reliability of grading
    

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5. Interactive Learning Activity Example

LO3 Activity: Study Planning & Reflection

• Task: Respond adaptively to different scenarios of social media use.
  
• Reflection: After reading through the scenarios, respond to each one with a strategy or reflection on how you would change their use of social media and make it intentional rather than out of boredom or habit.
  
• Feedback: Peers provide supportive comments; instructor highlights insights.
  

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6. Bibliography

Giumetti , G. W., & Kowalski , R. M. (2022, February 19). Cyberbullying via social media and well-being. Science Direct. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X22000161 

Miller, S. (2022, June 2). The addictiveness of social media: How teens get hooked: Jefferson health. Jefferson Health – Greater Philadelphia & South Jersey Region. https://www.jeffersonhealth.org/your-health/living-well/the-addictiveness-of-social-media-how-teens-get-hooked

Montag, C., Lachmann, B., Herrlich, M., & Zweig, K. (2019). Addictive Features of Social Media/Messenger Platforms and Freemium Games against the Background of Psychological and Economic Theories. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(14), 2612. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16142612

After typing in “addictive nature of social media” into my YouTube search bar I began watching a video titled “Why scrolling on social media is addictive” by Washington Post. If this video was used in our learning resource learners would be able to respond to the video on their own by making notes on how addiction starts and why it happens. This will help them understand the concept and understand terms and definitions. While watching the short video, learners can also take notes on these concepts. By taking notes they can then apply the information to the learning objectives and interactive activities. 

After watching the video I would suggest to the learners that they complete the multiple choice quiz. This will allow concepts and terms to be fresh and then after the quiz is completed it will be a measure of how much they learned from the video. The video would help learners be able to recognize when social media is being used as a drug for themselves as well as others. It will also let them gain a sense of the concept of social media’s addictive features such as scrolling which is a widely used activity. It can be a relatable video which can help learners use their own experience to understand concepts. 

Students would receive feedback by submitting their quiz on whichever learning resource they are using (e.g., Brightspace). Once completed, the learner will get automatic feedback, or if it is an assignment rather than a quiz, the instructor will privately post the feedback that only the learner can see. Additional feedback options could include Zoom meetings with the instructor or communication through email. Allowing learners to submit their activities online would potentially decrease the workload, as you can have the websites automatically grade quizzes. The work would be manageable and an efficient way for learners to receive feedback. This approach can definitely be scaled for a larger number of students because of automatic grading and the efficient communication of the feedback.

Due to being in high school and university at times when we had to do school from home or even write our finals online from home, I know the stress that comes with it. What if we can’t access learning resources? What if we don’t understand the concepts from home? This can be stressful for learners as many learn best in person or hands on experience. Since many schools and universities have made switches to online learning, I believe it is necessary to elaborate on strategies to make sure all learners’ needs can be met. 

With the learning activities we created they can be easily adjusted to make sure they still get the best education while being online if an unexpected event were to occur. For the first learning objective we want learners to get familiar with definitions and concepts. This is followed by a short infographic such as slides that can be accessed online. It is then followed by a quiz which is also done online already so it is easily accessible for learners to do from home. The second learning objective comes with an activity where learners will learn about how to build a habit. After reading these steps they will then create a pamphlet with an intervention on how to reduce the use of social media. This can be an online assignment as you can create posters and pamphlets on websites such as Canva. This can then be submitted online for the educator to assess. The third learning objective is an interactive one which may cause barriers for online learners. Learner’s are asked to respond to other learners’ experiences with social media and come up with strategies on how to solve their bad habits. By allowing zoom calls or discussion boards, learners can interact with eachother while learning online from home. 

I believe it is extremely helpful that many learning resources already come from online which make it an easier transition if an unexpected event occurred and a learner had to continue online. Since most of the resources and material that educators provide is offered online I feel as if the delivery of the information will still be successful. The learner’s can also have a more successful experience if the educator is able to communicate with them through email, collaborative chat, or zoom office calls.

Since I have been a student in school since kindergarten I have engaged, learned, and watched many different types of learning. While I think learning can be subjective for each individual, I am going to touch on inquiry-based learning and how I think it is a positive and strong way to learn. One of the best features of inquiry-based learning is that it is student-centered. This way students can pull from past experiences they can use the three inter-related memory-forming processes and can result in stronger plasticity for the learners. Although this learning form fosters exploration rather than memorization, it doesn’t mean that the learners can’t use memory from past experiences to support their outcomes of the education (ex., using past experience to solve an issue or scenario).

During inquiry-based learning, there is an educator or teacher who I think is a helpful resource/tool when learning. Their role can be to deliver information in a way where the information is provided in steps or chunks rather than as a whole. They can also encourage learners to relate their own lives to the concepts and create relevant topics. Personally, being able to relate my own experiences to concepts has made my understanding deepen and allows me to apply the concepts in real life.

This learning approach aligns with our topic of “The Addictive Nature of Social Media” as we allow learners to begin their own planning and strategies. We also encourage the learner to create their own adaptive responses to scenarios which they can decide to form from their own lives or past experiences with the topic. This topic is also relevant to the directed audience and is easy to connect with as social media has become a large part of our everyday lives. As learners explore this topic they can discover new things about themselves aswell as this topic that they may not have been aware of before. 

Some of the best learning experiences I have had were at University. I feel that cognitivism has played a big part in why my learning experiences have been so positive during my time at University. Much like behaviourism, cognitivism shows that the environment plays a big factor in learning experiences. During my third year of psychology, I took a psychology course and it was successful for me and my learning because we got to engage in a lot of group work and class disucssions. The first part of the class would be small group work then that would be followed with a big class discussion on what we had talked about.

Being surrounded by like minded people helped satisfy my relatedness because I felt a sense of belonging knowing that the people in my group shared the same interests and goals as I did. The professor allowed us to share our opinions and experiences, making it a safe environment to learn. Since I had already learned a lot of key concepts for psychology it helped that I could apply them in a practical way to group work. This form of active engagement really supported my ability to retain information while also helping me stay engaged and motivated. It also encouraged me to think critically rather than just passively absorbing information.

I thoroughly enjoyed this course because it specialized in a topic that I am intrinsically motivated to learn and care about. With the group work being a part of the class, it helped me build relationships with other classmates while also giving us space to share opinions, ask questions, and analyze ideas together. I enjoyed hearing everyone’s stories and opinions, and it made me open my eyes more to the world. These discussions allowed for deeper cognitive processing and helped me understand different perspectives, and reminded me how meaningful social and cognitive interactions are in enhancing learning processes.