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Navigating the Social Media Seas: Understanding the Complex Relationship between Social Media Use and Adolescent Well-being

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Abstract

Despite the sharp rise of studies on social media, there is still little consensus concerning the impact of social media use on adolescents’ well-being. We argue that this is due to the narrow focus on quantitative aspects of social media (e.g. frequency of use) and the use of very specific indicators of well-being. This research contributes to the literature by (1) looking at both quantitative indicators of social media use (frequency of use) and qualitative indicators (compulsive use and motives of use) and (2) covering diverse aspects of adolescents’ well-being (overall life satisfaction -SWLS, emotional well-being (SPANE-N and SPANE-P), satisfaction with mental health and with social contacts). Multiple regression analyses are carried out on cross-sectional data gathered in 2018 based on a representative sample among Flemish adolescents aged 14 to 25 (n = 1406; 52.6% girls; Mage = 18.96). Results show that more intensive use of social media coincides with more negative emotions, less overall life satisfaction, and less satisfaction with mental health. Especially for boys, the use of social media was associated with more negative emotions. In addition, we observed that compulsive social media use leads to more negative and less positive emotions and satisfaction with mental health. However, using social media for interpersonal contact was positively related to higher well-being (all indicators). The findings underscore the importance of a nuanced debate on the potential impact of social media use on adolescents’ well-being in which both its positive and negative consequences are considered.

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Notes

  1. Since the alpha coefficient often underestimates true reliability when working with two items (Eisinga et al., 2013), we also calculated the Spearman-Brown coefficient. This resulted in almost the same coefficient (Spearman Brown Coefficient = 0.623).

  2. The Spearman-Brown coefficient resulted in the same coefficient of 0.589. Although this coefficient is low, we prefer to work with this two-item scale rather than just one of the two items to capture both the informative use of social media in the context of own interests and in the context of current affairs.

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Funding

The Flemish Youth Monitor is administered by the Youth Research Platform, a cooperation between three research groups of three Flemish universities, which is funded by the Department of Youth, Culture and Media of the Flemish Government.

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  1. Department of Sociology, Research group TOR, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Jessy Siongers & Bram Spruyt

  2. Department of Sociology, Research group CuDOS, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Jessy Siongers

  3. Department of Educational Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Jessy Siongers

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  1. Jessy Siongers
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  2. Bram Spruyt
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Correspondence to Jessy Siongers.

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Siongers, J., Spruyt, B. Navigating the Social Media Seas: Understanding the Complex Relationship between Social Media Use and Adolescent Well-being. Child Ind Res 17, 177–196 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-023-10080-8

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