Diversity of Social Media Use: Self-Selection Effects Explain Associations Between Using Many Platforms and Well-Being

Sophie Lohmann , Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)
Emilio Zagheni , Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)

Many people engage with a diverse array of social media platforms, raising concerns that pervasive use of social media across multiple aspects of life may be linked to negative affect, hypothesized to arise from multitasking or identify diffusion. However, it has not been established whether and how social media diversity affects health and happiness. Using a large representative sample (N = 1,372) of US adults from the authoritative General Social Survey (2016 wave), we examine associations between social media diversity and multiple facets of well-being, and propose a self-selection explanation for these associations. Even without accounting for selection bias, we find few and only small associations between multiple platform use and well-being. Importantly, after using a rigorous propensity-score weighting technique to adjust for selection bias based on socio-demographic factors and overall internet time use, , these associations disappear. Further, we show which users tend to use many platforms and again document few negative associations between the use of specific social media platforms and well-being. Our findings suggest that (i) diverse social media use is not a major risk factor to adult well-being; (ii) negative correlations reported in the literature may be spurious; (iii) future social media research should take self-selection biases seriously and attempt to statistically correct for them where possible, in order to move towards a more causal understanding of the role of social media use for health and well-being.

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 Presented in Session P1. Postercafe