Abstract
Adolescents are spending considerable time on social media, yet it is unclear whether motivations for social media use drive different forms of social media engagement, and their relationships with body satisfaction and well-being. This study tested a proposed model of the relationships between motivations for social media use, types of social media engagement and body satisfaction and well-being. Responses to an online survey from 1432 Australian adolescents (Mage = 13.45 years, SD = 1.14, range 11–17; 55.4% boys) were collected. Structural equational modelling indicates excellent model fit. Specifically, motivations for social media use (information sharing, passing time, escapism, social interaction, social capital and appearance feedback) were associated with engagement (intensity, photo-based use, active use, passive use and liking use) and revealed mixed associations with body satisfaction and well-being. The findings support the importance of considering motivations for social media use in future research.
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Notes
Model invariance was established between schools. Following the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure, this multi-group analysis suggest only one parameter was significantly different by school; the covariance between passive use and liking use (β = −0.03, SE = 0.01, p < 0.001). Overall, this provides support for model invariance across schools, suggesting the appropriateness of a single analysis including both schools.
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The authors would like to thank all schools, staff, students and research assistants for their support in this study.
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H.K.J. conceived of the study, participated in its design, facilitated study coordination, conducted the analyses, and drafted the paper; M.D.M. conceived of the study, participated in its design and helped draft the paper; S.A.M. conceived of the study, participated in its design and helped draft the paper; A.S. conceived of the study, participated in its design and helped draft the paper; S.J.P. conceived of the study, participated in its design and helped draft the paper. All authors read and approved the final paper.
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This research was supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery Grant [DP170100709] and La Trobe University, Melbourne.
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Jarman, H.K., Marques, M.D., McLean, S.A. et al. Motivations for Social Media Use: Associations with Social Media Engagement and Body Satisfaction and Well-Being among Adolescents. J Youth Adolescence 50, 2279–2293 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-020-01390-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-020-01390-z
Keywords
- Adolescent
- Body satisfaction
- Motivations
- Social media
- Well-being