psychology of social media Flashcards
how many people worldwide use some form of social media
4.74 billion people
93% of regular internet users use social media
who uses social media the most
women aged 16-24
average is 3 hours 10 minutes per day
moving target problem
difficult to study social media since its constantly changing
research tends to be too slow to keep up
also hard to know if effects can be generalized to all platforms since social media takes many forms
what is the number one reason for using social media
relationship maintenance
- most useful for:
- weaker tie relationships
- people high in social anxiety
emotion regulation and stress management on social media
stress triggers more social media use
- used as a coping tool
- seeking social support, problem solving by seeking solutions from network, distraction from negative emotions, catching others positive mood
kramer et al - emotion contagion on facebook
study that manipulated exposure to emotional content in people’s facebook news feed and examined emotions expressed in status updates after this exposure (positive vs. negative)
found that people had the most positive status updates when exposed to fewer negative posts and less positive status updates when exposed to fewer positive posts
suggests that what people consume on social media has an impact on their mood
self presentation and self esteem boost in social media
people use social media for identity reasons - social media gives us more control to create a particular image of ourselves, especially a socially desirable one/self enhanced
how does social media lead to a self esteem boost?
- we internalize the desirable self presentation we create
- receive positive feedback from others, probably more than in real life
(positive comments, likes, followers, more positive views than criticism, easier to mask feelings)
Which is more accurate, th idealized virtual reality hypothesis or the extended real life hypothesis?
idealized virtual reality: profiles display idealized characteristics that do not reflect who we really are
extended real life hypothesis: people use social media to communicate their real personalities - this one is more accurate
measuring accuracy of social media profiles
had people self report their ‘real personality’ and then had coders look at their facebook page
took the average of coders ratings and compared to the self report
overall, research shows a positive correlation between people’s self reports of their personalities and coders’ ratings of their personality
suggests that facebook personalities tend to accurately reflect people’s real personalities
moderation by personality trait
some traits are judges more accurately than others online
extraversion perceived most accurately (r=0.41)
neuroticism perceived least accurately (r=0.11)
computer based personality judgements
algorithm analyzed facebook likes of 7000 participants and used this to make personality judgments (compared to ps self report)
algorithm’s judgement of individual’s personality based on facebook profiles was more accurate then friends’ and family’s judgements of individual’s personality
what does accurate personality perception depend on in offline settings?
a target expressing cues that are indicative of their personality and a perceiver detecting and using these cues to infer personality
target’s cue expression plays a more important role
- works the same way on social media
moderators of online personality accuracy
extent of activity on social media
- people that are less active are expressing fewer cues, leading to their personality being judged less accurately
visibility of trait
- some traits are easier to detect by perceivers - visible traits are judged more accurately than less visible traits
high extraversion and facebook use
- more facebook friends
- expressive pictures
- more posts
- posts about current activities
high openness and facebook use
- posts about left wing politics
- creative picture
- posts about cultural interests
high neuroticism and facebook use
- fewer positive posts and pictures
- more time on social media, but more likely to use it passively
you are what you tweet study
had people rate their personality, analyzed their tweets from the last month, using software analyzed words in tweets and also had coders rate personality traits from tweets
found that personality traits influenced people’s language in their tweets, meaning people could accurately assess personality from tweets
Accuracy of personality judgments on instagram
102 instagram users
- profiles rated on big five by 100 perceivers
found a positive correlation between self reports and perceiver judgments of extraversion, openness, and neuroticism
- no correlation between agreeableness and conscientiousness
does facebook reveal relationship satisfaction
yes
people in happy relationships post more selfies with partner, are more likely to have their partner in the profile picture and use more relationship maintenance behaviours (positivity, assurances, more common in long distance partners)
attachment and social media
avoidant attachment:
- prefer using social media to communicate with partner rather than face to face
- relationships less visible on social media
anxious attachment:
- more partner surveillance
arguments for and against facebook and wellbeing
for:
- feelings of connection
- higher self esteem
- social involvement
- social support
against:
- weaker social interaction
- lower self esteem
- lower emotional well being
- lower life satisfaction
- increased loneliness and depression
- increased envy
meta analyses of facebook and wellbeing
evidence across 4 meta analyses shows no significant link between amount of social media use and
- self esteem
- depression
- loneliness
- academic achievement
what determines whether facebook is beneficial or not
how it is used:
passive use is associated with decreased well being
- scrolling through feed, looking at profiles
- more comparisons, more envy
- upward social compairons
active use is associated with increased well being/no relationship
- status updates, links, commenting
- leads to greater social capital and feelings of connection
how do people tend to use social media
more passively than actively
different reasons for different social meaids
facebook: relationship maintenance and self presentation
instagram: self documentation, self promotion, showing creativity, and seeing other’s content
tiktok: self documentation and creativity
twitter: information sharing and consumption
instagram and well being
passive use predicts more symptoms of depression over time - symptoms of depression also predict more instagram use
no consistent relationship between instagram use and anxiety or general life satisfaction
instagram and body image
consuming and posting fitspiration content associated with more negative body image and disordered eating
internal research concluded that instagram is engineered towards greater social comparisons than other apps, like tiktok and snapchat
