10. Social Media and Well Being Flashcards
2 components of well-being
- physical
- psychological
2 components of psychological well-being
Emotional component (”Do you feel happy generally?”)
Cognitive component (”Do you feel satisfied with your life?”)
direct effects of social media (2)
Accessing health information
Physical injury
affordances of Accessing health information
- Affordances: anonymity and asynchronicity allows you to find specific and readily available information
- But how good / accurate is the information online?
- May lead to changes in behaviour
percent of 14-22 year olds that go online for health info
87%
percent of 14-22 year olds that say they changed behaviour bc of online health info
28%
physical injury with social media ?
- “texting thumb”
-
Dequervain Syndrome
- Inflamed tendon sheath
indirect effects of social media
- sleep
Most teens → less than 7 hours per night
components of social media that affect sleep
- bright lights
- longer to fall asleep when using e-reader vs. real book - Emotionally arousing content/interactions
- Displacement
- Displacing time sleeping by spending time on your phone
% that keep media device in bedroom ?
97
Why do youth use social media instead of sleeping? (2)
- FOMO
- Norms and expectations
- “need to be there because everyone else is there”
AFFECTIVE WELL-BEING -> Does social media impact our mood?
yes because of emotional contagion
what is emotional contagion
emotional states can be transferred to others
eg: If you are spending time with someone who is happy, you might be more likely to feel happy
- research has found evidence for in-person interactions
- does this work through social media too ??
Facebook Mood Study
Does this impact what someone posts themselves?
Analyzed Facebook users (700,000)
- broadly -> not just adolescents
Examined people’s newsfeeds
- Researchers manipulated emotional content of newsfeed for 1 week
conditions of facebook study
- Positive content → reduced
- Negative content → reduced
FINDINGS
- reduced positive -> posted less positive and more negative
- reduced negative -> posted less negative and more positive
IMPLICATIONS ??
Social media can impact mood
CONTROVERSY
- Ethics → can Facebook experiment on their users?
- Are these effects large enough to be meaningful?
- Very small → 1 extra positive or negative word per week in posts
what mood affect is rising?
depression
Home Net Study
Early studies on the internet suggested that high amounts of use were linked to depression
- Individuals with no internet → given internet
- Followed up 1 year later to see impact
findings from study
Increase in depression, especially for those who use the internet often
what do correlational studies find
mixed results
- Most note a small relationship between time spent on social media and depressive symptoms
- Direction of effect?
how can longitudinal inform direction>
If we see higher amounts of social media before depressive symptoms, might indicate direction (and vice versa)
- more info about relationship b/w social media and depression within individuals
what are the findings?
Mixed findings!
- Most longitudinal studies finds social media use predicts depression
- Other studies → no findings or complicated patterns
what did one longitudinal study do ?
Followed adolescents from age 13-20 (8 years)
- tested once per year
- measured social media use, how much, and depressive symptoms
findings ?
Between individual effects
- Those who used more social media → more likely to have depressive symptoms
Within individual effects
- Using more or less social media don’t seem to be connected to depressive symptoms
- Suggests social media doesn’t cause depression
why are these so mixed ?
- changes within an individual might be too small to make an impact
- Variations within use in a high social media user might be too small to impact someone’s depression
what could a third variable be
Family situations?
→ more likely to experience depression and more likely to use social media
what about experiemntal designs ?
Done by randomly assigning people to reducing social media use to 10 mins per day
-> mixed findings lol
FINDINGS
higher levels of depression at baseline → decline in depressive symptoms when reduced social media
low levels at baseline -> no impact
what about another study that did Random assignment of no social media for either 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, or 4 weeks
- Found no difference
No rise in well-being when restricted use of social media
what do most studies find ?
- positive impact (12)
- no effect (5)
- negative effect (1)
variables in these studies ?
- time of reduction
- some benefits for short - amount of reduction
- more benefit for reduction (10 mins per day) vs abstention (not using at all)
what does research on cognitive well-being tell us ?
But studies are too mixed to be conclusive…
why inconclusive?
Life satisfaction → more consistent than mood per day
- less impacted by social media use
sooooo what is the consistent pattern in psychological well-being and social media use ?
NONE
- May be an overall SMALL negative effect
- Meta-analyses find very small effect
BUT MANY SAY THIS IS TOO SMALL TO MATTER
like eating potatoes :)
ethics in social media ?
Causality requires manipulation
- is this ethical ?
people lie about their age
- 13 is way too young to study also
biases?
Researchers try to partner with social media platforms
- Self-report → less accurate than pulling data directly from social platforms
why is there a small correlation b/w social media use and negative well–being?
- SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
- SOCIAL COMPARISON
- FOMO
what kind of social media use decreases well being?
browsing -> increased worry of discrimination -> decreased well being
what kind of social media use increases well being?
posting & PMing -> increased social support -> improved well-being
is discrimination linked to higher social media use?
yes
what components of social media allow for social comparision? (3)
- availability
- accessibility
- publicness
what leads to more upward comparision?
asynchronity, cues management
whatt does this lead to ?
envy -> poor well being
who feels envy? depression or no depression?
BOTH but higher in depression
other factors?
type of use (passive vs. active)
who/what is being viewed (individuals vs. content)
what is FOMO linked with?
lower life-satisfaction, lower self-esteem, higher anxiety
direction of causality b/w FOMO and social media use?
More evidence that FOMO causes social media use
(we do know that high levels of FOMO use more social media)
What factors matter for individual differences? (4)
- Content
- Age (development)
- Disposition (personality, mental health)
- Characteristics of content
