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Background: Social media are as popular as ever, and concerns regarding the effects of social media use on adolescent well-being and mental health have sparked many scientific studies into use effects. Social media research is currently at an important crossroads: conflicting results on social media use’s effects on well-being are abundant, and rec...
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Context 1
... beforehand what sorts of reliable (ie, objective) data can be accessed is paramount for study success, since the stimulated recall hinges on data to aid the participant in accurately recalling thoughts and feelings about the activities of interest. Second, if there was uncertainty about what sort of app the participant was using, we attempted to retrieve this information using the overview of currently opened apps (see Figure 3 for a screenshot of what that looks like on an iPhone). To make sure that in such a situation we would not be faced with a sequence of apps that had been used days ago (but never closed) rather than in the 10 minutes of the waiting period, we followed a standardized procedure. ...
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BACKGROUND
Social media are as popular as ever, and concerns regarding the effects of social media use on adolescent well-being and mental health have sparked many scientific studies into use effects. Social media research is currently at an important crossroads: conflicting results on social media use’s effects on well-being are abundant, and rece...
Citations
... The existing body of work has shown that (young) people's interaction with social media is a complex phenomenon that needs to be investigated not only with more methodological rigour, but also with more attention to why, how and with whom social media are used. Therefore, in the current study, we have implemented a novel paradigm called 'stimulated recall of social media use' (Griffioen et al., 2020a). This paradigm entails a combination of detailed and objective data with an intensive, semi-structured interview and allows researchers to delve deep into people's personal experiences when interacting with digital technologies like social media, without compromising the reliability of data. ...
... Upon leaving the bar lab, the experimenter quickly moved to an adjacent control room, where an overhead video camera was switched on to record participants' activities in the bar lab during the 10-min monitoring phase. This camera was positioned in such a way that the participant was not identifiable, and no text or images could be read on the participant's phone (Griffioen et al., 2020a). Only the participant's hand movements (e.g., clicking, typing and swiping) and the general colour and layout of what was on the screen could be made out. ...
... Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org to aid the participant in their recollection of the events in this time [for a more detailed description of the paradigm, see (Griffioen et al., 2020a)]. If a participant did not consent to the use of the video footage for the interview (n = 4), the interview did not take place, and the participant was fully debriefed and given a reward corresponding to the time spent in the study. ...
Literature concerning the relationship between social media use and wellbeing is inconsistent in its findings, and most research has focused on time spent on social media rather than on what emerging adults do there, with whom and why. Here, we investigated whether momentary social stress affects emerging adults’ social media use, and whether this social media use relates to subsequent changes in wellbeing. We implemented a multi-method paradigm utilising objective and self-report data to investigate how social stress relates to how (much) and why emerging adults use social media. We report on findings based on 114 17–25-year-old emerging adults recruited on university campus. Our findings suggest that social stress does not affect adolescents’ subsequent social media use and that there is no relationship between social media use after stress and changes in momentary wellbeing. Our work illustrates the need for detailed approaches in social media and psychological wellbeing research.
... As outside observers, we can never be completely certain if a comment is sarcastic or genuine, and therefore we could not confidently examine differential associations for sarcastic compared to genuinely negative comments. Future research could incorporate participants' perceptions of SNS comments (Griffioen et al., 2020) to better distinguish these potential differences. Users' perceptions and investment in feedback (e.g., how much they value feedback; whether they perceive negative feedback as genuine) may also be particularly important (Butkowski et al., 2019). ...
Frequent use of highly visual online platforms such as Instagram may be linked to greater body image concerns. One prominent feature of Instagram is the ability to receive feedback in the form of likes and comments. The goal of this cross-sectional study (conducted in laboratory and online) was to examine college students' receipt of appearance commentary on their most recent Instagram posts, and how this relates to their self-reported body image concerns. The Instagram commentary that 337 students (M age=20.39) received on their posts was observationally coded for positivity and negativity. Receiving positive appearance commentary was common and linked to greater appearance-related social media consciousness, and, weakly, to body surveillance. There were no associations with self-objectification, appearance-contingent self-worth, facial satisfaction, and body dissatisfaction. Negative appearance commentary was not associated with body image concerns. Photos depicting only the self were especially likely to elicit positive appearance commentary. Females received more positive appearance commentary compared to males, whereas males received more negative appearance commentary. Future research should examine long-term effects of receiving appearance comments via Instagram.
... Since the introduction of social media platforms, researchers have investigated how the use of such media affects adolescents' wellbeing. Thus far, findings have been inconsistent [1][2][3]. The aim of our interdisciplinary project is to provide a more thorough understanding of these inconsistencies by investigating who benefits from social media use, who does not and why it is beneficial for one yet harmful for another [1]. ...
... These data download packages (DDPs) aid in resolving three main challenges in current research. First, the reliability of social media use self-reports suffer from recall bias, particularly among teens [2]. Instagram DDPs provide objective, timestamped insights in Instagram use. ...
Since the introduction of social media platforms, researchers have investigated how the use of such media affects adolescents’ well-being. Thus far, findings have been inconsistent. The aim of our interdisciplinary project is to provide a more thorough understanding of these inconsistencies by investigating who benefits from social media use, who does not and why it is beneficial for one yet harmful for another. In this presentation, we explain our approach to combining social scientific self-report data with the use of deep learning to analyze personal Instagram archives.
... This study extends previous research by its greater emphasis on ecological validity, in that it involves browsing actual Instagram profiles to better assess generalizability of effects to real life browsing. Ecologically valid SNS studies would be useful to complement studies with pre-selected browsing stimuli, to ensure that the findings of these studies can generalize to people's actual SNS experiences (e.g., Griffioen et al., 2020). In this study, we include two conditions that contain "real" profiles (the acquaintance and self conditions), and a third condition with preselected but "real" profiles, rather than a series of independent images that exist on Instagram (the influencer condition). ...
Social networking sites (SNSs) may be transforming young people's social experiences, and browsing SNSs in particular may harm psychological well-being. However, browsing different types of SNS profiles may differentially relate to psychological well-being. In a large and ethnically diverse sample of emerging adults (N = 405), this experimental study examined changes in state affect and self-perceptions after browsing one of three different types of profiles on Instagram: an acquaintance, an influencer, or one's own profile. Moreover, this study investigated how individual characteristics may moderate relations between browsing and well-being, by exploring feedback seeking behaviors and the fear of missing out. Browsing one's own Instagram profile led to positive changes in psychological well-being, whereas browsing the profile of either an acquaintance or an Instagram influencer led to negative changes in psychological well-being. Many observed effects, especially those found for the acquaintance and influencer conditions, were moderated by participants' dispositional levels of the fear of missing out and feedback seeking, in which effects were primarily observed for those higher in these characteristics. Findings suggest that SNSs may have positive or negative effects on well-being depending on who is online and what those individuals are browsing.
... Since the introduction of social media platforms, researchers have investigated how the use of such media affects adolescents' wellbeing. Thus far, findings have been inconsistent [1][2][3]. The aim of our interdisciplinary project is to provide a more thorough understanding of these inconsistencies by investigating who benefits from social media use, who does not and why it is beneficial for one yet harmful for another [1]. ...
... These data download packages (DDPs) aid in resolving three main challenges in current research. First, the reliability of social media use self-reports suffer from recall bias, particularly among teens [2]. Instagram DDPs provide objective, timestamped insights in Instagram use. ...
... These methods not only eliminate the overreliance on self-reports that has marred past research. They also help us move beyond experiments that focus on only one digital application at a time, which is the current standard protocol in social media research (Ellis, 2019;Ellis et al., 2019;Griffioen, van Rooij, Lichtwarck-Aschoff, & Granic, 2020;Sewall, Rosen, & Bear, 2019). Another advantage of passive mobile tracking methodologies is that they allow us to merge "big data" across domains to provide a finegrained picture of the relations between naturalistic expressions of identity themes and subsequent wellbeing. ...
We are in the midst of a global transition in which digital “screens” are no longer simply entertainment devices and distractions; rather, adolescents are currently living in a hybrid reality that links digital spaces to offline contexts. Yet, psychological scientists studying the mental health impact of digital experiences largely focus on correlations with “screen time,” leading to oversimplified and atheoretical conclusions. We propose an alternative, functional approach to studying adolescent mental health in the digital age, one that examines why and how digital media affect adolescent development. Specifically, we suggest that understanding identity development—the core developmental task of adolescence—can help pinpoint the digital experiences that contribute to healthy versus problematic mental health outcomes. We have four objectives: (1) integrate principles from clinical and personality psychology with developmental theory to present a theoretical framework for investigating narrative identity; (2) show how this framework provides a useful lens for evaluating the impact of digital media on adolescents; (3) suggest a set of novel hypotheses that specify what kinds of digital contexts and experiences lead to healthy versus problematic mental health outcomes; and (4) propose a detailed research agenda that tests these hypotheses. © 2020 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
... During this phase, we used the video footage of their activities as well as in-app logs to help the participants answer a number of structured questions about their phone and social media use during the waiting period (for a more detailed description of this particular implementation, see Griffioen et al., 2020). By implementing a highly structured stimulated recall interview in combination with objective data retrieved, this methodology allows researchers to address the current lack of reliable, objective information in the field. ...
Both academic and public interest in social media and their effects have increased dramatically over the last decade. In particular, a plethora of studies have been conducted that aimed to uncover the relationship between social media use and youth well-being, fueled by recent concerns that declines in youth well-being may well be caused by a rise in digital technology use. However, reviews of the field strongly suggest that the picture may not be as clear-cut as previously thought, with some studies suggesting positive effects, and some studies suggesting negative effects on youth well-being. To shed light on this ambiguity, we have conducted a narrative review of 94 social media use and well-being studies. A number of patterns in methodological practices in the field have now become apparent: Self-report measures of general statistics around social media use dominate the field, which furthermore often falls short in terms of ecological validity and sufficient use of experimental designs that would enable causal inference. We go on to discuss why such practices are problematic in some cases, and more importantly, which concrete improvements can be made for future studies that aim to investigate the relationship between social media use and well-being.
Social media use is widespread. Because social media can yield both positive and negative mental health effects, it is critical for clinicians to consider how their clients use social media. The purpose of this review is to examine the extant experimental literature on the positive and negative effects of social media, with an eye towards how clinicians can (1) assess use, (2) educate on harmful use, and (3) promote skills that encourage healthier use.
The existing literature suggests that active social media use that promotes positive connection, reminiscing, or warmth can be beneficial, whereas social media use that involves exposure to and production of highly idealized content, a focus on physical appearance, or a reliance on feedback can be harmful. To encourage healthier social media use, clinicians can encourage the building of intrapersonal skills, including reappraising comparison-inducing content, self-compassion, and mindfulness.
Although additional experimental work is needed to thoroughly inform treatment plans, findings suggest avenues that may be effective for clinicians when treating clients who struggle with their social media use. Changing how clients approach social media, rather than encouraging abstinence from use, may be more effective and practical in this digitally saturated age.
Studies have produced vastly disparate findings when exploring relationships between social networking site (SNS) usage and psychosocial well-being. These inconsistencies might reflect a lack of consideration for how people use SNS; specifically, while meaningful interactions are suggested to foster positive feelings, the passive consumption of others’ feeds is proposed to have negative effects on users’ well-being. To facilitate the empirical evaluation of these claims, the present study developed a computerised task to measure styles of usage on a mock SNS platform. Administering this Social Network Site Behaviour Task (SNSBT) online to 526 individuals, we identified three dissociable usage styles that extend the active-passive dichotomy employed frequently in the literature: passive use (consuming content posted by others), re active use (reacting to others’ content), and inter active use (interacting with others through content sharing). Furthermore, our data reveal that these usage styles differ on several measures of psychosocial variables employed frequently in the disparate literature: more interactive users reported greater feelings of social connectedness and social capital than passive or reactive users. Importantly, however, our results also reveal the multi-dimensional nature of usage styles, with online network size and time spent on SNS platforms serving as potentially confounding influences on some psychosocial measures. These findings not only advance our understanding of SNS behaviour by providing empirical support for theoretic propositions, but also demonstrate the utility of the SNSBT for experimental investigations into the psychosocial outcomes of different SNS usage styles.
