Addiction in Global Age: Social Deviation or Identity Problem

Free flow of information, goods, services, and humans beyond national borders has provided different conditions for the personal, social, and cultural life of the contemporary human being in all levels and aspects. It has placed identity and meaning issue in the center of social phenomena’s construction related to him/her. Focusing on the increaser role of communication technologies in removing geographical borders as well as diversity and plurality of identity construction mechanisms in the world, the present study aimed to investigate such changes related to addiction which was formerly known as a social deviation resulting from urban troubles. Through content analysis, 42 selected articles related to addiction in Iran in 1380s were compared with different theoretical approaches in this research field and target social groups. The results indicate that there is a huge gap between the theoretical axis of these researches and the social context of the addiction issue. In other words, in most research conducted in 1380s, addiction was studied without attention to its social context and globalization processes; in fact, it was only considered as a social deviation, and many of its aspects were neglected. It should be pointed out that changes in factors such as age, gender, social status, and geographical area of drug users as well as the type of drug and its use pattern would lead to significant changes in the nature of the addiction concept.