Unit 10 Flashcards
What is most social media research regarding?
-impact on well-being
(does it displace other good things in our lives - is one of)
(what’s being left out of the online interactions)
What 2 types of well-being can social media impact?
-physical
-psychological (emotional/affective & cognitive)
^are related to each other - impact each other
What is cognitive?
- how you are thinking about your life
What is affective?
-your feelings or emotions
If ask youth if social media has an impact what do they think?
-think it has a positive effect
-allows you to connect, find info
(some do think negative tho)
-45% said neither
What are the direct effects on physical well-being from online?
- 14-22yr olds - access health info online - b/c it’s accessible, anonymous, available 24/7 -may lead to changes in behaviour (13-18yr olds have said they have)
- physical injury - inflamed tendon -text-messagers thumb
Indirect effects on physical well-being from online?
- sleep (both physical & psychological)
- adolescents need sleep
How does phones/online/social media indirectly impact sleep?
- displacement -(sleep w/ media use)
- emotionally arousing content/interactions makes it difficult to fall asleep
- bright light - (e-book on Ipad took longer to fall asleep & more sleepiness the next day)
What is the consensus on social media and psychological well-being?
- no consensus
- hotly debated - mixed research
- most research has focused on young adults
How can social media affect your mood? (affective)
-emotional contagion -(emotional states can be transferred to others - can catch from social media?)
What is a study w/ emotional contagion? Issues?
- Facebook Mood Study
- done by fb team and other researchers
- 700,000 users - manipulated what they saw for a week - experimental - positivity was reduced and negative emotions reduced -then rated emotional content of your own posts
- when seeing les negative stuff posted less negative, (& same w/ less positive)
- very controversial - ethics - consent
- effects large enough? -tiny effect
- meaningful w/in population?
Does social media impact depression?
- mixed findings
- early days of internet were linked w/ depression
- correlational have found mixed (direction? Small relationship)
- longitudinal - more info on direction - more on ‘within’ - still mixed findings (between individual effects but not within effects)
- experimental - also mixed
What’s an example of an experimental study & social media?
-undergrads -3 weeks - normal use & limit to 10min/day - found those who had higher baseline depression rate when in experimental there was a decline in depressive symptoms -but those w/ low depression at start had no impact
What is another example of an experimental study on depression & social media?
- randomly assigned undergrads
- normal use or no social media for either, 1,2,3,4 weeks
- found no difference btw normal use or treatment groups
Summary of social media & experimental designs on well-being?
- 12 studies that reduced social media had a positive impact on well-being
- 5 had no effect
- 1 said negative effect (ie reducing social media negatively impacted well-being)
Why might the experimental studies results vary so much?
- 3rd variables?
- time duration of reduction (seems to have benefits to reduce for a short period of time, but what about longer?)
- more benefits for reduction than full abstention
What is cognitive well-being?
how you think about your well-being - your life satisfaction
Life satisfaction & media?
- some find relationship w/ life satisfaction and social media use - but life satisfaction less impacted (?) b/c more stable than moods/emotions
- but findings are mixed
well-being & social media?
- no consistent pattern
- not strongly tied to well-being - small effect (meta-analysis)
2 types of how we use social media?
- active - facilitates exchanges w/ others: chatting, posting, sharing
- passive - lurking, consuming info w/o exchanges
study -correlational - w/ types of use and social media?
- 14-16yr olds - time on social media -active or passive, and relationship to depression -those who did more passive use had positive correlation w/ depression & anxiety
- active had less strong of a relationship, but did have less depression & anxiety
- (active use is more rare)
study - experimental - types of use and social media?
-young adults - undergrads - Facebook - randomly assigned passive or active use - for 10min -then measured mood & well-being - immediately after & at end of day - no diff at baseline - no effect immediately - but was an effect at end of the day - passive dropped in well-being -(active slight increase but not strong) - maybe why mixed effects in other studies (can also boost)
What about Asian Americans and their experiences of discrimination in Covid?
-those who had experienced were linked w/ greater social media use - diff types had diff effects - if messaging & posting = increased social support & linked to improved well-being - if passive/browsing - increased worry of discrimination & decreased well-being
When might types of use not help with benefitting well-being?
- Displacement theory
- if it displaces or distracts from face-to-face -which is linked w/ poorer social connections & well-being