Department of Advertising and Public Relations, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States.
Department of Communication, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, United States.
Addict Behav. 2021 Aug;119:106949. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.106949. Epub 2021 Apr 10.
Social media platforms allow people to connect with each other and obtain social rewards. In some individuals, these reinforcing rewards can induce maladaptive, problematic social media use, with symptoms similar to substance use disorders. This problematic social media use has been associated with poorer mental health. Previous studies have demonstrated that social support can protect against poor mental health. People can receive social support both in real-life and on social media, however, so we investigated whether these two types of social support mediate the relationship between problematic social media use and poor mental health. We conducted an online survey, collecting measures of problematic social media use and mental health (depression, anxiety, and social isolation), as well as measures of real-life social support and social support received on social media. We then performed a path analysis on these data. Our analysis revealed that problematic social media use was significantly associated with decreased real-life social support and increased social support on social media. Importantly, real-life social support was then associated with reduced depression, anxiety, and social isolation, while social support on social media was not associated with these mental health measures. Our findings reveal the value of real-life social support when considering the relationship between problematic social media use and mental health. Implications for further research and practice are discussed.
社交媒体平台允许人们相互联系并获得社交奖励。在某些人中，这些强化奖励可能会导致适应不良的、有问题的社交媒体使用，其症状类似于物质使用障碍。这种有问题的社交媒体使用与较差的心理健康有关。先前的研究表明，社会支持可以预防心理健康状况不佳。人们可以在现实生活中和社交媒体上获得社会支持，但是，因此我们调查了这两种类型的社会支持是否在有问题的社交媒体使用和较差的心理健康之间起中介作用。我们进行了一项在线调查，收集了有问题的社交媒体使用和心理健康（抑郁、焦虑和社交孤立）的测量指标，以及现实生活中的社会支持和社交媒体上获得的社会支持的测量指标。然后，我们对这些数据进行了路径分析。我们的分析表明，有问题的社交媒体使用与现实生活中的社会支持减少和社交媒体上的社会支持增加显著相关。重要的是，现实生活中的社会支持与抑郁、焦虑和社交孤立的减少有关，而社交媒体上的社会支持与这些心理健康指标无关。我们的发现揭示了在考虑有问题的社交媒体使用与心理健康之间的关系时，现实生活中的社会支持的价值。讨论了对进一步研究和实践的影响。
