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Social media use and adolescents’ well-being: A note on flourishing

BACKGROUND: Several large-scale studies and reviews have reported both negative and positive associations of social media use with well-being, suggesting that the findings are more complex and need more nuanced study. Moreover, there is little or no exploration of how social media use in adolescence...

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Autores principales: Marciano, Laura, Viswanath, Kasisomayajula
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10116992/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37089739
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1092109
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author Marciano, Laura
Viswanath, Kasisomayajula
author_facet Marciano, Laura
Viswanath, Kasisomayajula
author_sort Marciano, Laura
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Several large-scale studies and reviews have reported both negative and positive associations of social media use with well-being, suggesting that the findings are more complex and need more nuanced study. Moreover, there is little or no exploration of how social media use in adolescence influences flourishing, a more all-encompassing construct beyond well-being, including six sub-domains (i.e., happiness, meaning and purpose, physical and mental health, character, close social relationships, and financial stability). This paper aims to fill this gap by understanding how adolescents might flourish through social media activities by fulfilling the basic needs pointed out by the Self-Determination Theory, i.e., relatedness, autonomy, and competence. METHODS: The study is drawn on cross-sectional data collected from 1,429 Swiss adolescents (58.8% females, M(age) = 15.84, SD(age) = 0.83) as part of the HappyB project in Spring 2022. Self-reported measures included the Harvard Adolescent Flourishing scale, positive and negative online social experiences, self-disclosure on social media, and social media inspiration. Control variables included, among others, self-esteem, ill-being, and personality. RESULTS: After applying Bonferroni’s correction, results of the hierarchical regression analyses showed that positive social media experiences (β = 0.112, p < 0.001) and social media inspirations from others (β = 0.072, p < 0.001) and for others (β = 0.060, p = 0.003) were positively associated with flourishing. Flourishing was inversely associated with negative social media experiences (β = −0.076, p < 0.001). Among covariates, self-esteem (β = 0.350, p < 0.001), ill-being (β = −0.252, p < 0.001), perceived school environment (β = 0.138, p < 0.001), self-reported level of physical activity (β =0.109, p < 0.001), and perceived socio-economic status (β = −0.059, p = 0.001) were all related to flourishing. In contrast, gender, high school year, age, perceived stress, and personality (extraversion and neuroticism) were not. CONCLUSION: Using a well-being framework to investigate social media use in adolescents is needed to go beyond the ill-being perspective. Our results align with the needs pointed out by the Self-Determination Theory. Carrying out social media activities in a way that promotes—rather than diminishes—flourishing should be included as an additional good habit influencing adolescents’ development. We suggest that interventions aiming to foster adolescents’ flourishing should include curricula aiming to promote a good use of social media through positive online social relationships and inspirational contents.
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spelling pubmed-101169922023-04-21 Social media use and adolescents’ well-being: A note on flourishing Marciano, Laura Viswanath, Kasisomayajula Front Psychol Psychology BACKGROUND: Several large-scale studies and reviews have reported both negative and positive associations of social media use with well-being, suggesting that the findings are more complex and need more nuanced study. Moreover, there is little or no exploration of how social media use in adolescence influences flourishing, a more all-encompassing construct beyond well-being, including six sub-domains (i.e., happiness, meaning and purpose, physical and mental health, character, close social relationships, and financial stability). This paper aims to fill this gap by understanding how adolescents might flourish through social media activities by fulfilling the basic needs pointed out by the Self-Determination Theory, i.e., relatedness, autonomy, and competence. METHODS: The study is drawn on cross-sectional data collected from 1,429 Swiss adolescents (58.8% females, M(age) = 15.84, SD(age) = 0.83) as part of the HappyB project in Spring 2022. Self-reported measures included the Harvard Adolescent Flourishing scale, positive and negative online social experiences, self-disclosure on social media, and social media inspiration. Control variables included, among others, self-esteem, ill-being, and personality. RESULTS: After applying Bonferroni’s correction, results of the hierarchical regression analyses showed that positive social media experiences (β = 0.112, p < 0.001) and social media inspirations from others (β = 0.072, p < 0.001) and for others (β = 0.060, p = 0.003) were positively associated with flourishing. Flourishing was inversely associated with negative social media experiences (β = −0.076, p < 0.001). Among covariates, self-esteem (β = 0.350, p < 0.001), ill-being (β = −0.252, p < 0.001), perceived school environment (β = 0.138, p < 0.001), self-reported level of physical activity (β =0.109, p < 0.001), and perceived socio-economic status (β = −0.059, p = 0.001) were all related to flourishing. In contrast, gender, high school year, age, perceived stress, and personality (extraversion and neuroticism) were not. CONCLUSION: Using a well-being framework to investigate social media use in adolescents is needed to go beyond the ill-being perspective. Our results align with the needs pointed out by the Self-Determination Theory. Carrying out social media activities in a way that promotes—rather than diminishes—flourishing should be included as an additional good habit influencing adolescents’ development. We suggest that interventions aiming to foster adolescents’ flourishing should include curricula aiming to promote a good use of social media through positive online social relationships and inspirational contents. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-04-06 /pmc/articles/PMC10116992/ /pubmed/37089739 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1092109 Text en Copyright © 2023 Marciano and Viswanath. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Marciano, Laura
Viswanath, Kasisomayajula
Social media use and adolescents’ well-being: A note on flourishing
title Social media use and adolescents’ well-being: A note on flourishing
title_full Social media use and adolescents’ well-being: A note on flourishing
title_fullStr Social media use and adolescents’ well-being: A note on flourishing
title_full_unstemmed Social media use and adolescents’ well-being: A note on flourishing
title_short Social media use and adolescents’ well-being: A note on flourishing
title_sort social media use and adolescents’ well-being: a note on flourishing
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10116992/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37089739
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1092109
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