A Critical Stylistic Analysis of Digital Addiction in British Newspapers

10.2478/bjlp-2022-007081

Abstract

Digital addiction is a new type of behavioural addiction that emerges as a result of excessive and compulsive use of new digital technologies. Many researchers have focused on studying substance addiction and some types of digital addiction in a variety of fields such as discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, and psycholinguistics. However, no linguistic study is conducted on digital addiction as an umbrella term. The current study aimed to detect which critical stylistic tool (textual-conceptual functions) are employed in Guardian and Independent’s articles to reflect ideologies regarding the concept of digital addiction. The study concluded that all five critical stylistic tools are employed in both newspaper articles to reflect negative ideologies since they are employed to warn people that digital addiction affects all aspects of life like drugs and convince them to increase their awareness of it.