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Exploring Relationships between Social Media Use , Belonging and Wellbeing
Karla L. Alvarado
Faculty Mentor: Samuel D. Gosling, PhD
As social media continues to become an increasingly salient part of daily life, understanding its impact on wellbeing is crucial. The relationship between social media use and wellbeing is complex, as both positive and negative outcomes have been reported. These outcomes include a greater sense of belonging—how connected and accepted an individual feels to their environment—along with negative aspects of personal wellbeing, such as depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Although social media use may significantly impact wellbeing, previous studies have relied on self-reported screen time, leaving a gap in understanding how objectively measured use relates to wellbeing. This study used repeated measures over time of participant social media screen time data to investigate whether changes in social media use were associated with changes in sense of belonging and personal wellbeing. Additionally, it considered personality differences affecting social media use, including measures of extraversion and emotional stability. Two cross-lagged panel model analyses revealed a negative bidirectional effect between social media use and personal wellbeing. These effects indicate the variables predict each other over time at a within-person level, where higher social media use leads to lower personal wellbeing and higher personal wellbeing leads to lower social media use over time. Additionally, extraversion was found to be positively correlated with both sense of belonging and personal wellbeing. Future research should continue to use objective measures of social media use to further explore associations between social media and potential associations with wellbeing and belonging.