The Role of Social Media in Adolescent Loneliness and Mental Health Problems: Current Evidence and Suggestions for Future Work

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Warner Myntti ◽  
Jensen Spicer ◽  
Carol Janney ◽  
Stacey Armstrong ◽  
Sarah Domoff

Adolescents are spending more time interacting with peers online than in person, evidencing the need to examine this shift’s implications for adolescent loneliness and mental health. The current review examines research documenting an association between social media use and mental health, and highlights several specific areas that should be further explored as mechanisms within this relationship. Overall, it appears that frequency of social media use, the kind of social media use, the social environment, the platform used, and the potential for adverse events are especially important in understanding the relationship between social media use and adolescent mental health.

Author(s):  
Kinza Amjad ◽  
Muzammil Saeed ◽  
Farahat Ali ◽  
Muhammad Awais

Social media, in the new millennium, has become a very effective tool of communication, information, and propagation regarding all social, religious, and political discourses that further lead towards ideological divisions. In the contemporary democratic world, the role of social media for political opinion building is obvious which is done by opinion leaders through political information and debates. The purpose of this study is to explore the social media use and political polarization among social media users. The survey research method was used to examine social media use for political engagement and political polarization. Private university students were selected as participants (n=350). The result was found positive which means that social media use is responsible for political polarization. Moreover, social media use is also a significant predictor of political engagement. In addition to this, the results show that political engagement is a mediator between the relationship between social media use and political polarization. The practical implications of the study have been discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-199
Author(s):  
Agnes Kovacs ◽  
Tamas Doczi ◽  
Dunja Antunovic

The Olympic Games are among the most followed events in the world, so athletes who participate there are exceptionally interesting for the media. This research investigated Olympians’ social media use, sport journalists’ attitudes about Olympians’ social media use, and the role of social media in the relationship between Olympians and sport journalists in Hungary. The findings suggest that most Hungarian Olympians do not think that being on social media is an exceptionally key issue in their life, and a significant portion of them do not have public social media pages. However, sport journalists would like to see more information about athletes on social media platforms. The Hungarian case offers not only a general understanding of the athlete–journalist relationship, and the role of social media in it, but also insight into the specific features of the phenomenon in a state-supported, hybrid sport economy.


Heliyon ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. e04056 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay Young ◽  
Daniel C. Kolubinski ◽  
Daniel Frings

Author(s):  
Mustafa Savci ◽  
Muhammed Akat ◽  
Mustafa Ercengiz ◽  
Mark D. Griffiths ◽  
Ferda Aysan

AbstractProblematic social media use (PSMU) among adolescents has become an area of increasing research interest in recent years. It is known that PSMU is negatively associated with social connectedness. The present study examined the role of family life satisfaction in this relationship by investigating its mediating and moderating role in the relationship between problematic social use and social connectedness. The present study comprised 549 adolescents (296 girls and 253 boys) who had used social media for at least 1 year and had at least one social media account. The measures used included the Social Media Disorder Scale, Social Connectedness Scale, and Family Life Satisfaction Scale. Mediation and moderation analyses were performed using Hayes’s Process program. Regression analysis showed that PSMU negatively predicted family life satisfaction and social connectedness. In addition, family life satisfaction and PSMU predicted social connectedness. Mediation analysis showed that family life satisfaction had a significant mediation effect in the relationship between PSMU and social connectedness. Family life satisfaction was partially mediated in the relationship between PSMU and social connectedness. Moderation analysis showed that family life satisfaction did not have a significant effect on the relationship between PSMU and social connectedness. The study suggests that family life satisfaction is a meaningful mediator (but not a moderator) in the relationship between problematic social media use and social connectedness.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaobo Wei ◽  
Xiayu Chen ◽  
Chunli Liu

PurposeThe authors develop a conceptual model to examine how three basic psychological needs (i.e. needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness) affect employee social media use (i.e. work- and social-related use). The authors propose that the need for autonomy positively moderates the relationship between need for competence and work-related use, whereas it negatively moderates that between need for relatedness and social-related use.Design/methodology/approachTo test the proposed model, 332 internal and 271 external social media users in the workplace were recruited.FindingsThe results indicate that needs for competence and autonomy and needs for relatedness and autonomy positively affect the work- and social-related use, respectively, of internal and external social media. Need for autonomy positively moderates the relationship between need for competence and work-related use of internal social media, and it negatively moderates that between need for relatedness and the social-related use of internal social media. Need for autonomy has no moderating effect on the relationship between need for competence and work-related use, whereas it negatively moderates the relationship between need for relatedness and the social-related use of external social media.Originality/valueFirst, the authors’ findings offer significant empirical support for the different social media uses, namely work and social related. Second, this study highlights the importance of psychological needs of employees in determining the form of social media use. Third, this study empirically demonstrates the differences in psychological needs and social media use between two different social media contexts.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Qingjiang Han ◽  
Lei Xia

We examined employee voice as the mediator in the social media use–employee innovative behavior relationship in the current Web 2.0 age. We used structural equation modeling to test this mediating role with 178 employees of a large enterprise in China. The results showed a significant positive relationship between social media use and employee voice, and between employee voice and innovative behavior, and a positive but not significant relationship between social media use and employee innovative behavior. Results also supported a full mediating role for employee voice in the social media use–employee innovative behavior relationship. Our findings extend prior research and suggest some mechanisms of social media use. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 136078042110373
Author(s):  
Natalie-Anne Hall

Facebook has frequently been implicated in the 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum result, and support for Leave has been linked to wider nativist and populist mobilisations online. However, close-up, qualitative sociological research has not been conducted into the relationship between Brexit and social media use. This is, in part, due to the computational turn in online research, which has led to a disproportionate focus on quantitative big data analysis. This article argues for the value of close-up, qualitative enquiry to facilitate situated understandings of the reality of social media use and what it means to individuals. It outlines one such methodology developed to investigate pro-Leave Facebook users, to demonstrate how challenges posed by such research can be overcome, and the opportunities such enquiry affords for studying the role of social media in contentious politics. Invaluable insights gained include the way Facebook provides an empowering tool for making claims to political knowledge in the context of growing transnational nativist and populist grievances.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 4906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Odukorede Odunaiya ◽  
Mary Agoyi ◽  
Oseyenbhin Sunday Osemeahon

With little known about how social TV (STV) strategies can be harnessed by the broadcasting industry in order to increase and sustain their viewers, this study brings new insight to the social TV phenomenon by investigating the effect of game uncertainty and social media use (SMU) on social TV engagement in generating network loyalty (NL). The study also analyzed the mediating effect of severity between game uncertainty and social media use with social TV engagement. SmartPLS 3 was used to analyze the survey data of 364 participants for the proposed model, and the findings from the study revealed that game uncertainty and social media use have a positive effect on social TV engagement, which positively influences network loyalty. In addition, it was seen that severity mediates the relationship between game uncertainty and social media use with social TV engagement.


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