Elsevier

Computers in Human Behavior

Volume 102, January 2020, Pages 206-213
Computers in Human Behavior

The serially mediated relationship between emerging adults’ social media use and mental well-being

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.08.019Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Social media use is related to mental health problems among emerging adults.

  • Emerging adults use social media to deal with stress.

  • Social media use may be a maladaptive way to deal with negative emotions.

Abstract

Social media use can negatively influence emerging adults' mental well-being. Therefore, this study explored the relation between social media use and mental well-being through difficulties with emotion regulation and perceived stress among a sample of U.S. college-student emerging adults. Results revealed that social media is indirectly related to mental health problems when emerging adults have difficulty with emotion regulation and perceived stress. The study also found that emerging adults’ social media use is an outcome of difficulties with emotion regulation through the effect of these difficulties on perceived stress and mental well-being. Findings suggest that social media use may be a risk factor for mental health struggles among emerging adults, and that social media use may be an activity to which emerging adults resort when dealing with difficult emotions.

Section snippets

Emerging adulthood and mental health

Emerging adulthood comprises the life stage between adolescence and adulthood, roughly between the ages 18–29 (Arnett, Zukauskiene, & Sugimura, 2014). In Western, industrialized cultures, emerging adulthood is a period of uncertainty and of exploration in a variety of life possibilities, such as identity, relationships, education, career, world-views, and risky behaviors (Arnett, 2000). Some scholars suggest that emerging adulthood is a “paradox” (Kuwabara, Van Voorhees, Gollan, & Alexander,

Media use and mental well-being

Many emerging adults spend more time with media—approximately 9–12 h each day (Alloy Media & Marketing, 2009; Nielsen, 2018)—than perhaps with any other activity (Coyne, Padilla-Walker, & Howard, 2013). Approximately 88–90 percent of emerging adults use social media (Perrin, 2015; Smith & Anderson, 2018), and college students who are emerging adults use social media for nearly an hour every day (Jacobsen & Forste, 2011; Nielsen, 2018). Some estimates suggest that the social media use of 44% of

Emotion regulation

Emotion regulation refers to one's awareness of, clarity about, acceptance of, access to, ability to control, and ability to work through emotional responses (Gratz & Roemer, 2004). Those who can successfully regulate their emotions tend to have better mental health outcomes (Martin & Dahlen, 2005) and interpersonal outcomes (John & Gross, 2004). The inability to regulate one's emotions is related to anxiety and a host of other mood and mental disorders (for a review, see Campbell-Sills &

Emotion regulation, stress, and mental well-being

Emotion regulation, in turn, should be expected to be associated with perceived stress among emerging adults. Research shows that difficulties with emotion regulation are related to emerging adults' and others’ self-reported indicators of stress or perceived stress (Finlay-Jones, Rees, & Kane, 2015; Zahniser & Conley, 2018). In addition, stress, in turn, is a robust predictor of challenges with mental well-being. Stress is related to a host of psychiatric disorders and psychological distress,

Participants and procedures

Participants included 546 college undergraduates ages 18–34 (M = 20.82, SD = 2.09) enrolled in communications courses at a large, southern U.S. university. A majority of participants self-reported as Caucasian (73%), 13% as Hispanic/Latino, 7% as Black/African American, 2% as Asian, 1% as American Indian/Alaska Native, and less than 1% as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Approximately 66% of the sample self-reported as female. After providing informed consent, participants completed an

Results

The first four hypotheses were first tested via bivariate correlational analysis (see Table 1), and were then tested via separate linear regression models. The serial mediation models in Hypotheses 5 and 6 were tested using ordinary least squares regression via Hayes (2013) PROCESS SPSS macro (model 6), which uses bootstrapping (1000 samples) to test the statistical significance of the mediated paths (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). Age and gender were included as covariates in each regression model.

Discussion

Emerging adulthood is characterized by periods of transition, adjustment, and social instability (Arnett, 2000; Kuwabara et al., 2007; Schulenberg et al., 2004). And while emerging adulthood can be a period of optimism (Kuwabara et al., 2007) and greater mental well-being (Arnett, 2007), it can also be a time characterized by mental health struggles (Arnett, 2007). Reasons for these struggles vary, but research evidence suggests that one risk factor may be the large amounts of time emerging

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