Addiction To Studying
In todays modern society, students face multiple academic pressures. The best colleges and universities require the best grades for entry and parents push and expect their children to succeed educationally. At school, pupils learn early on that success comes through dedication, discipline, and hard work. For some individuals, the act of educational study may become excessive and/or compulsive and lead to what has been termed studyaddiction.
Although there is little research and no generally accepted definition of study addiction to date, such behaviour (as a way of dealing with academic stress and pressure) has been conceptualized within contemporary research into workaholism. Consequently, from a work addiction perspective, study addiction was defined by Dr. Cecilie Andreassen and her colleagues in a 2014 issue of the Journal of Managerial Psychology as: Being overly concerned with studying, to be driven by an uncontrollable studying motivation, and to put so much energy and effort into studying that it impairs private relationships, spare-time activities, and/or health.
The many similarities between studying and working lead to the notion that study addiction may be a precursor for or an early form of workaholism that might manifest itself in childhood or adolescence. Work appears to share many similarities to that of learning and studying, as both involve sustained effort in order to achieve success, often related to skills and knowledge, and both fulfill important social roles. In previous studies, workaholism has been shown to be a relatively stable entity over time. This suggests that the behavioural tendency to work excessively may be manifesting itself early in the development of an individual in relation to learning and associated academic behaviours. Given the similarities between excessive work and excessive study, there is no theoretical reason to believe that study addiction (like work addiction) does not exist.
Unlike most other behavioural addictions (e.g., pathological gambling, video gaming addiction, shopping addiction etc., workaholism like exercise addiction has often been regarded as a positive and productive kind of addiction. Notably, workaholics typically score higher on personality traits such as conscientiousness and perfectionism compared to other addicts. As with the workaholic, the perfect student is hard working and involved, and it is likely that study addiction is also associated with conscientiousness. Along with the academic pressure derived from many differing sources (such as the fear of failure), it is also conceivable that such individuals like workaholics will score higher on neuroticism.
Source: Psychology Today
