The social media see-saw: Positive and negative influences on adolescents’ affective well-being
Abstract
Social media use is nearly universal among US-based teens. How do daily interactions with social apps influence adolescents’ affective well-being? Survey self-reports (n = 568) portray social media use as predominantly positive. Exploratory principal component analysis further indicates that positive and negative emotions form orthogonal response components. In-depth interviews with a sub-sample of youth (n = 26), selected for maximum variation, reveal that affect experiences can be organized across four functional dimensions. Relational interactions contribute to both closeness and disconnection; self-expression facilitates affirmation alongside concern about others’ judgments; interest-driven exploration confers inspiration and distress; and browsing leads to entertainment and boredom, as well as admiration and envy. All interviewees describe positive and negative affect experiences across multiple dimensions. Analyses suggest the relationship between social technology usage and well-being—whether enhanced or degraded—is not confined to an “either/or” framework: the emotional see-saw of social media use is weighted by both positive and negative influences.
Get full access to this article
View all access and purchase options for this article.
References
AP-NORC (2017a) American teens are taking breaks from social media; some step back deliberately, but other breaks are involuntary. Available at: http://www.apnorc.org/PDFs/Teen%20Taking%20Breaks/APNORC_Teens_SocialMedia_Breaks_2017_FINAL.pdf
AP-NORC (2017b) Instagram and Snapchat are the most popular social networks for teens; black teens are most active on social media, messaging apps. Available at: http://www.apnorc.org/PDFs/Teen%20Social%20Media%20Messaging/APNORC_Teens_SocialMedia_Messaging_2017_FINAL.pdf
Best P, Manktelow R, Taylor B (2014) Online communication, social media and adolescent well-being: a systematic narrative review. Children and Youth Services Review 41: 27–36.
Bevan JL, Gomez R, Sparks L (2014) Disclosures about important life events on Facebook: relationships with stress and quality of life. Computers in Human Behavior 39: 246–253.
Beyens I, Frison E, Eggermont S (2016) “I don’t want to miss a thing”: adolescents’ fear of missing out and its relationship to adolescents’ social needs, Facebook use, and Facebook related stress. Computers in Human Behavior 64: 1–8.
Boyatzis RE (1998) Transforming Qualitative Information: Thematic Analysis and Code Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
boyd d (2008) Why youth (heart) social network sites: the role of networked publics in teenage social life. In: Buckingham D (ed.) Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp.119–142.
boyd d (2014) It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Bradburn NM (1969) The Structure of Psychological Well-being. Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Company.
Chou HTG, Edge N (2012) “They are happier and having better lives than I am”: the impact of using Facebook on perceptions of others’ lives. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 15(2): 117–121.
Davis K (2012) Friendship 2.0: adolescents’ experiences of belonging and self-disclosure online. Journal of Adolescence 35(6): 1527–1536.
Diener E, Larsen RJ (1993) The experience of emotional well-being. In Lewis M, Haviland JM (Eds.) Handbook of Emotions. New York, NY: Guilford, pp. 405–415.
Diener E, Suh E (1997) Measuring quality of life: economic, social, and subjective indicators. Social Indicators Research 40(1–2): 189–216.
Diener E, Suh EM, Lucas RE, Smith HL (1999) Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin 125(2): 276–302.
Dodge R, Daly AP, Huyton J, et al. (2012) The challenge of defining well-being. International Journal of Well-being 2(3): 222–235.
Duguay S (2014) “He has a way gayer Facebook than I do”: investigating sexual identity disclosure and context collapse on a social networking site. New Media & Society 18: 891–907.
Emerson RM, Fretz RI, Shaw LL (2011) Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Gardner H, Davis K (2013) The App Generation: How Today’s Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
George MJ, Odgers CL (2015) Seven fears and the science of how mobile technologies may be influencing adolescents in the digital age. Perspectives on Psychological Science 10(6): 832–851.
Haferkamp N, Krämer NC (2011) Social comparison 2.0: examining the effects of online profiles on social-networking sites. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 14(5): 309–314.
Hayes AF, Krippendorff K (2007) Answering the call for a standard reliability measure for coding data. Communication Methods and Measures 1(1): 77–89.
Ito M, Baumer S, Bittanti M, et al. (2009) Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media. Cambridge, MA: The MIT press.
Jelenchick LA, Eickhoff JC, Moreno MA (2013) “Facebook depression?” Social networking site use and depression in older adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health 52(1): 128–130.
Jolliffe I (2002) Principal Component Analysis. New York: Springer.
Krasnova H, Wenninger H, Widjaja T, et al. (2013) Envy on Facebook: a hidden threat to users’ life satisfaction? Wirtschaftsinformatik 92: 1–16.
Kross E, Verduyn P, Demiralp E, et al. (2013) Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. PloS One 8(8): e69841.
Lenhart A, Duggan M, Perrin A, Stepler R, Rainie L, Parker K (2015) Teens, Social Media & Technology Overview 2015. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.
Meier EP, Gray J (2014) Facebook photo activity associated with body image disturbance in adolescent girls. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 17(4): 199–206.
Miles MB, Huberman AM, Saldaña J (2014) Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
Pantic I (2014) Online social networking and mental health. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 17(10): 652–657.
Patton DU, Eschmann RD, Butler DA (2013) Internet banging: new trends in social media, gang violence, masculinity and hip hop. Computers in Human Behavior 29(5): A54–A59.
Primack BA, Shensa A, Escobar-Viera CG, et al. (2017) Use of multiple social media platforms and symptoms of depression and anxiety: a nationally-representative study among US young adults. Computers in Human Behavior 69: 1–9.
Przybylski AK, Weinstein NA (2017) Large scale test of the Goldilocks hypothesis: quantifying the relations between digital screens and the mental well-being of adolescents. Psychological Science 28(2): 204–215.
Reich SM (2016) Connecting offline social competence to online peer interactions. Psychology of Popular Media Culture. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000111
Reich SM, Subrahmanyam K, Espinoza G (2012) Friending, IMing, and hanging out face-to-face: overlap in adolescents’ online and offline social networks. Developmental Psychology 48(2): 356–368.
Ryan RM, Deci EL (2001) To be happy or to be self-fulfilled: a review of research on hedonic and eudemonic well-being. Annual Review of Psychology 52: 141–166.
Saldaña J (2015) The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Snapchat (2017) Snapchat support: create a story. Available at: https://support.snapchat.com/en-US/article/post-story
Spradley JP (1979) The Ethnographic Interview. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Stern S (2008) Producing sites, exploring identities: youth online authorship. Youth, Identity, and Digital Media 6: 95–117.
Tandoc EC, Ferrucci P, Duffy M (2015) Facebook use, envy, and depression among college students: is Facebooking depressing? Computers in Human Behavior 43: 139–146.
Underwood MK, Faris R (2015) Being thirteen: social media and the hidden world of young adolescents’ peer culture. Cable News Network. Available at: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2448422-being-13-report.html
Underwood MK, Ehrenreich SE, More D, et al. (2015) The Blackberry project: the hidden world of adolescents’ text messaging and relations with internalizing symptoms. Journal of Research on Adolescence 25(1): 101–117.
Valkenburg PM, Peter J, Schouten AP (2006) Friend networking sites and their relationship to adolescents’ well-being and social self-esteem. Cyberpsychology & Behavior 9(5): 584–590.
Van Horn JE, Taris TW, Schaufeli WB, et al. (2004) The structure of occupational wellbeing: a study among Dutch teachers. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 77(3): 365–375.
Vannucci A, Flannery KM, Ohannessian CM (2017) Social media use and anxiety in emerging adults. Journal of Affective Disorders 207: 163–166.
Watson D., Clark LA (1997) Measurement and mismeasurement of mood: Recurrent and emergent issues. Journal of Personality Assessment 68(2): 267–296.
Watson D, Tellegen A (1985) Toward a consensual structure of mood. Psychological Bulletin 98(2): 219–235.
Watson D, Clark LA, Tellegen A (1988) Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54(6): 1063–1070.
Weinstein E, Selman RL (2016) Digital stress: Adolescents’ personal accounts. New Media and Society 18(3): 391–409.
Willig C (2013) Introducing Qualitative Research in Psychology. London: McGraw-Hill Education.
Wright KB, Rosenberg J, Egbert N, et al. (2013) Communication competence, social support, and depression among college students: a model of Facebook and face-to-face support network influence. Journal of Health Communication 18(1): 41–57.
Yau JC, Reich SM (2017) Are the qualities of adolescents’ offline friendships present in digital interactions? Adolescent Research Review DOI 10.1007/s40894-017-0059-y.
Biographies
Emily Weinstein is a postdoctoral fellow at Project Zero, a research center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her research focuses on the intersections of networked technologies with the social, emotional, and civic lives of adolescents and emerging adults. Her work has appeared in journals such as New Media & Society, Computers in Human Behavior, Journal of Adolescent Research, Youth & Society, Creativity Research Journal, and International Journal of Communication.
Cite article
Cite article
Cite article
OR
Download to reference manager
If you have citation software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice
Information, rights and permissions
Information
Published In
Article first published online: February 21, 2018
Issue published: October 2018
Keywords
Authors
Metrics and citations
Metrics
Article usage*
Total views and downloads: 59484
*Article usage tracking started in December 2016
Altmetric
See the impact this article is making through the number of times it’s been read, and the Altmetric Score.
Learn more about the Altmetric Scores
Articles citing this one
Receive email alerts when this article is cited
Web of Science: 125 view articles Opens in new tab
Crossref: 134
- Is visual content modality a limiting factor for social capital? Exami...
- Further evidence of the association between social media use, eating d...
- The Social Media Use Scale: Development and Validation
- Social media use among Australian university students: Understanding l...
- A model of personal relationships and cyberbullying perpetration among...
- Social media “stars” vs “the ordinary” me: influencer marketing and th...
- Neurobiological sensitivity to popular peers moderates daily links bet...
- Wirkungen digitaler Medien auf die Gesundheit von Kindern und Jugendli...
- Teens and digital media: How do we move toward productive public disco...
- No connectivity, better connections: teenagers’ experiences of a phone...
- The influences of different types of social media activities on ethnic...
- Digital well-being theory and research
- The beauty and the beast of social media: an interpretative phenomenol...
- Happiness and Sadness in Adolescents’ Instagram Direct Messaging: A Ne...
- Social Grooming on Social Media and Older Adults’ Life Satisfaction: T...
- The Role of Religion, Spirituality and Social Media in the Journey of ...
- Social Media and Adolescent Mental Health
- Cyberbullying on Instagram: How adolescents perceive risk in personal ...
- Estimated prevalence of DSM‐5 eating disorders in Norwegian adolescent...
- Appearance‐based rejection sensitivity mediates the relationship betwe...
- Adolescents’ Augmented Reality Filter Usage on Social Media, Developme...
- “Whatever you do, I can do too”: Disentangling the daily relations bet...
- Investigation of social anxiety levels of pre-service teachers using s...
- Filtering the reality: Exploring the dark and bright sides of augmente...
- Personal and Witnessed Cyber Victimization Experiences Among Adolescen...
- Italian Validation of the Social Media Engagement Questionnaire (SME-Q...
- Go big or go home: Examining the longitudinal relations between exposu...
- The effect of social network sites on international students' accultur...
- Examination of the temporal sequence between social media use and well...
- Digital Detriments: Unraveling the Psychological Consequences of Socia...
- Social Media and Anxiety in Youth
- TikTok use and psychosocial factors among adolescents: Comparisons of ...
- Metaphor Perceptions of Adolescents Towards the Concept of Social Medi...
- The role of negative affects as mediators in the relationship between...
- #Instacomparison: Social Comparison and Envy as Correlates of Exposure...
- How do teens with a history of suicidal behavior and self‐harm interac...
- Interpretable machine learning‐based approaches for understanding suic...
- #Insta personality: Personality expression in Instagram accounts, impr...
- Mid-Adolescents’ Social Media Use: Supporting and Suppressing Autonomy
- Social media use and adolescents’ well-being: A note on flourishing
- The Double-Edged Sword Effect of Social Media on COVID-19 in Sub-Sahar...
- Gender Norms and Culture in Asian-Canadian Adolescent Boys’ Anticipati...
- “Leave your smartphone out of bed”: quantitative analysis of smartphon...
- Conceptualizing platformed conspiracism: Analytical framework and empi...
- Online health community for change: Analysis of self-disclosure and so...
- The importance of trust in the relation between COVID-19 information f...
- Concept analysis of adolescent use of social media for emotional well‐...
- Towards a framework for flourishing through social media: a systematic...
- Exploring adolescents’ perspectives on social media and mental health ...
- Looking beyond the adverse effects of digital technologies on adolesce...
- From Social Networking Site Use to Subjective Well-Being: The Interper...
- Sexualized Images on Social Media and Adolescent Girls’ Mental Health:...
- Being Social on Social Media: How Does it Affect the Mental Health of ...
- A four-level meta-analytic review of the relationship between social m...
- It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it: An experimental tas...
- Emotional well-being of black African queer employees in the workplace
- Understanding Motives, Usage Patterns and Effects of Instagram Use in ...
- The Use of Social Networking Sites and Its Impact on Adolescents’ Emot...
- The mental health and well-being profile of young adults using social ...
- “Why don’t I look like her?” How adolescent girls view social media an...
- Sociodemographic and mental health characteristics associated with cha...
- Is Fear of COVID-19 Leading to Future Career Anxiety and Turnover Inte...
- The Role of Empathic Traits in the Interaction With Virtual Humans
- Advancing our understanding of the associations between social media u...
- Associations Between Social Media Use, Physical Activity, and Emotiona...
- Toxicity and prosocial behaviors in massively multiplayer online games...
- Social Networking Use Across Gender: Its Association with Social Conne...
- Youth Insight About Social Media Effects on Well/Ill-Being and Self-Mo...
- The role of wisdom in navigating social media paradoxes: Implications ...
- ERGENLERİN SOSYAL MEDYA KULLANIMI ODAĞINDA ÖZ-ŞEFKATİN ROLÜNÜ ANLAMAK
- The role of parents, other adults, peers and informal learning communi...
- Adolescent Perceptions of the Risks and Benefits of Social Networking ...
- The Impact of Digitalization on Happiness: A European Perspective
- The Sustainable Effect of Artificial Intelligence and Parental Control...
- The body image “problem” on social media: Novel directions for the fie...
- ‘It’s just one big vicious circle’: young people’s experiences of high...
- COVID-19 PANDEMİ SÜRECİNDE SOSYAL MEDYADA KENDİNİ İFADE ETME DÜZEYİ VE...
- Exploring uses and gratifications and psychological outcomes of engage...
- Does the Number of Likes Affect Adolescents’ Emotions? The Moderating ...
- Integration of Social Media into Daily Activity of Adolescents and Sel...
- A prospective examination of relationships between social media use an...
- ‘What lies behind the filter?’ Uncovering the motivations for using au...
- Do Facebook and Instagram differ in their influence on life satisfacti...
- Associations of early social media initiation on digital behaviors and...
- The Impact of the COVID-19 “Infodemic” on Well-Being: A Cross-Sectiona...
- Thinking Aloud or Screaming Inside: Exploratory Study of Sentiment Aro...
- Digital Technology and Media Use by Adolescents: Latent Class Analysis
- Factors associated with nature connectedness in school-aged children
- Exploring the “Social” in Social Media: Adolescent Relatedness—Thwarte...
- Social Media Use and Adolescents’ Well-Being: Developing a Typology of...
- Adolescent Social Media Use and Well-Being: A Systematic Review and Th...
- How do Norwegian adolescents experience the role of social media in re...
- Life Challenges and Barriers to Help Seeking: Adolescents’ and Young A...
- Weight Stigma and Social Media: Evidence and Public Health Solutions
- How the media construct happiness under cultural perspective in China:...
- A matter of time? Sustainability and digital media use
- Always Available, Always Attached: A Relational Perspective on the Eff...
- Considering Social Media Use and Its Impact on Wellness among Adolesce...
- Pupils’ Use of Social Media and Its Relation to Mental Health from a S...
- Social media and smartphone app use predicts maintenance of physical a...
- Plurality in the Measurement of Social Media Use and Mental Health: An...
- Social Media, Depressive Symptoms and Well-Being in Early Adolescence....
- Dampak Peggunaan Media Sosial Terhadap Kesehatan Mental Dan Kesejahter...
- A role for social media? A community‐based response to guns, gangs, an...
- Perceived Challenges and Online Harms from Social Media Use on a Sever...
- Where it Hurts the Most: Peer Interactions on Social Media and in Pers...
- Positive and negative uses of social media among adolescents hospitali...
- Daily associations between social media use and memory failures: the m...
- Positive Youth Development in the Digital Age: Expanding PYD to Includ...
- Narrative Scripts Embedded in Social Media Towards Empowering Digital ...
- Quitting social media: a qualitative exploration of communication outc...
- Access to Potentially Harmful Online Content and Psychological Distres...
- Relationship Between Problematic Social Media Usage and Employee Depre...
- Screen Time, Social Media Use, and Adolescent Development
- Bedtime social media use, sleep, and affective wellbeing in young adul...
- Social Media Use and Mental Health and Well-Being Among Adolescents – ...
- The relationship between highly visual social media and young people’s...
- Do SNSs really make us happy? The effects of writing and reading via S...
- On the Phone When We’re Hanging Out: Digital Social Multitasking (DSMT...
- Youth Digital Participation: Now More than Ever
- Random, Messy, Funny, Raw: Finstas as Intimate Reconfigurations of Soc...
- Visualizing teens and technology: A social semiotic analysis of stock ...
- #selfharn on Instagram: understanding online communities surrounding n...
- Developing Quality-of-Life Pedagogy in Marketing Courses: A Structured...
- Teenage Play and Peer Interactions: Virtual, Social and Emotional Geog...
- A Stimulated Recall Method for the Improved Assessment of Quantity and...
- Constancy (the New Media “C”) and Future Generations
- Streams of fun and cringe: talking about Snapchat as mediated affectiv...
- Violence Exposure and Sexual Risk Behaviors for African American Adole...
- Fostering Social Media Literacy through a Participatory Mixed-Methods ...
- The Silent Classroom: The Impact of Smartphones and a Social Studies T...
- Motivational processes and dysfunctional mechanisms of social media us...
- Online child sexual exploitation, grooming and the law
- Towards a More Reflective Social Media Use Through Serious Games and C...
Figures and tables
Figures & Media
Tables
View Options
Get access
Access options
If you have access to journal content via a personal subscription, university, library, employer or society, select from the options below:
loading institutional access options
Alternatively, view purchase options below:
Purchase 24 hour online access to view and download content.
Access journal content via a DeepDyve subscription or find out more about this option.
