Background:          Social Media are part of everyday life so much so that a new disorder has been observed. The disorder is Social Media Addiction and is still not officially acknowledged as a non-substance addiction by APA. There are a lot of studies that examine the symptoms and causes of Social Media Addiction. A relief to Social Media Addiction is taking a break for a period from them. There are a few studies that investigate the benefits of a Social Media Break but not the side effects of it in relation to Social Media Addiction. Purpose:                  The purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between a Social Media Break and Social Media Addiction among Millennials in Sweden. This study aims to understand how Millennials in Sweden that are addicted to Social Media are affected by a Social Media break.  Method:                  The Bachelor Thesis uses Case Study as the methodology to discover how a Social Media Break affects a user that is addicted. The participants are Millennials that reside in Sweden and the Social Medium application is Facebook. Conclusion:             The findings from the Case Study show that there is a strong relationship between a Social Media Break and Social Media Addiction. The Millennials in this study expressed that Habit, Accessibility, Socializing and Fear of Missing Out were the reasons that made them return to their problematic Facebook relationship while taking a Break, or in other cases did not take a Break from Facebook.

Over the last couple of years’ social media has come to have an influential role in our lives. With the broad use questions has raised if social media use can have negative effects. We have seen a recurrent tendency in media and society that encourage people to overlook their social media use and seen cases of people reducing their private social media use. The purpose of this study is to examine attitudes in young adults whom have taken a break from social media or reduced their usage. Furthermore, we wanted to distinguish what types of strategies they have used when they renounced from social media. With a qualitative approach we interviewed five young adults that had waived from social media during different periods of time due to negative usage experiences. We examined our empirical material along side with previous research on social media, Goffman’s impression management theory and Nanna Gillberg’s notion on Bourdieu’s forms of capital. We found that people tend to see the opportunity of impression control as something tedious and time consuming which had lead to a diminished use of social media. When tackle this aspect of social media, it came down to reducing your usage to an extent without having to compromise the possibility social media offers to keep in contact with friends.

Syftet är att undersöka hur självkänsla är relaterat till användandet av sociala medier, samt om det föreligger några skillnader mellan pojkar och flickor gällande självkänsla, spenderad tid på och beteende i sociala medier. Frågorna som ska besvaras är: (I) Finns det ett samband mellan självkänsla och spenderad tid på sociala medier? (II) Finns det ett samband mellan självkänsla och aktiv användning av sociala medier? (III) Finns det en skillnad i självkänsla mellan aktiva och passiva användare av sociala medier? (IV) Finns det en skillnad mellan flickor och pojkar gällande självkänsla, spenderad tid på och beteende i sociala medier? Studien utgår från en kvantitativ ansats och materialet samlades in med hjälp av enkäter. Urvalet bestod av 140 stycken ungdomar (13–16 år) och valdes ut genom ett bekvämlighetsurval. Deltagarna fyllde i enkäten under lektionstid. Enkäten var en sammanställning av tre olika mätinstrument, RSES (Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale), Social Media Engagement Questionnaire (SMEQ) och Passive and Active Facebook Use Measure (PAUM). Enkätsvaren bearbetades slutligen statistiskt med korrelationsanalyser och t-tester. Resultatet visade på svaga negativa samband mellan självkänsla och de tre variablerna spenderad tid, aktiv social användning respektive aktiv icke-social användning. Resultatet visade inte på någon signifikant skillnad mellan passiva och aktiva användare. Pojkar rapporterade högre nivåer av självkänsla än flickor. Flickor rapporterade högre nivåer av passiv användning, aktiv social användning och aktiv icke-social användning än pojkar. En möjlig slutsats är att det finns en koppling mellan användningen av sociala medier och individens självkänsla. Resultatet i denna studie visade på att hög användning av sociala medier kan vara relaterat till en sämre självkänsla. Det verkar även finnas tendenser till skillnader mellan pojkar och flickor gällande både självkänsla och användningen av sociala medier. Det behövs ytterligare forskning på den yngre generationen för att ta reda på hur den unga individen kan använda sociala medier på ett sätt som främjar självkänslan. / The aim of this study is to examine how self-esteem is related to usage of social media, and if there are any gender differences between boys and girls regarding self-esteem, spent time and behavior on social media. The questions to be answered are: (I) Is there a relation between self-esteem and spent time on social media? (II) Is there a relation between self-esteem and active usage of social media? (III) Is there a difference in self-esteem between active and passive users of social media? (IV) Is there a difference between girls and boys regarding self-esteem, spent time and behavior on social media? The study has a quantitative approach and the material was collected by using surveys. The sample consisted of 140 adolescents (age 13-16) and was selected through a convenience sample. The participants filled in the survey during class. The survey was a compilation of three different measuring instruments; Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale (RSES), Social Media Engagement Questionnaire (SMEQ) and Passive and Active Facebook Use Measure (PAUM). The answers were processed statistically with correlation analyses and t-test. The result showed weak negative correlations between self-esteem and the three variables spent time, active social usage respective active non-social usage. The result didn’t show any significant difference between passive and active users. Boys reported higher levels of self-esteem than girls. Girls reported higher levels of passive usage, active social usage and active non-social usage. A possible conclusion could be that there is a connection between social media usage and self-esteem. The result in this study showed that large amount of social media usage could be related to lower self-esteem. There seems to be a difference between boys and girls regarding self-esteem and social media usage. Further research on the younger generation is needed to find out how the young individual could use social media in ways that promotes self-esteem.