In 2013, in the northern Peruvian city of Piura, a young psychology student named Bryan Luzuriaga conducted a study that would later prove remarkably prescient. His thesis, “Effects of a Cognitive Behavioral Program to Improve Self-Control in Students Predisposed to Facebook Addiction”, explored how adolescents were developing compulsive behaviors around social media use. At the time, Facebook was rapidly expanding worldwide, but few outside academic circles were considering its potential psychological harms.
Piura is a regional capital in northern
Peru, far from Silicon Valley. Yet it was here that Luzuriaga observed how
teenagers were spending excessive hours online, struggling with self-esteem,
and losing social skills. His research applied a cognitive-behavioral program
to 16 students aged 14–16, measuring their predisposition to Facebook addiction
using a standardized scale. The results showed that structured interventions
could reduce compulsive use and strengthen self-control.
Globally, Facebook had surpassed one
billion users by 2012. The platform’s design encouraged constant engagement,
and adolescents were particularly vulnerable. Luzuriaga’s thesis connected
these patterns to risks of depression, anxiety, and diminished interpersonal
skills—issues that would later dominate international debates.
Academic Findings
- Methodology: Experimental design
with control and treatment groups.
- Tools: Predisposition to Facebook
Addiction Scale (PAF), statistical validation using SPSS and Student’s
T-test.
- Results: The experimental group
showed significant improvement in self-control compared to the control
group.
- Implications: Cognitive-behavioral
strategies could mitigate social media addiction, framing it as a clinical
and educational issue rather than just a lifestyle choice.
From Piura to U.S. Courtrooms
More than a decade later, in 2025–2026,
U.S. courts fined Meta (Facebook’s parent company) hundreds of millions of
dollars for deliberately designing addictive platforms that harmed minors. The
same harms Luzuriaga documented—compulsion, low self-esteem, social
withdrawal—were recognized as corporate responsibility. What began as a local
academic concern in Piura became a global legal and ethical crisis.
For an international audience unfamiliar
with Piura, this story illustrates how insights from a regional university in
Peru anticipated a worldwide reckoning. It underscores that:
- Academic research in Latin America can foresee global
challenges.
- Social media addiction is not confined to wealthy nations; it
is a universal issue.
- Corporate accountability for digital harms has roots in
warnings issued long before lawsuits.
Bryan Luzuriaga’s 2013 thesis was more than
a student project. It was an early alarm bell about the dangers of social media
addiction. Today, as Meta faces legal consequences in the United States, his
work reminds us that solutions often emerge from unexpected places. Piura’s
voice from the past could have saved Meta millions—and, more importantly, could
have protected countless adolescents worldwide.
