Lopez Richard B, Polletta Isabel
Department of Psychology, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, United States.
Front Psychol. 2021 Aug 25;12:711447. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.711447. eCollection 2021.
Social media platforms have provided human beings with unprecedented ways to virtually connect with one another, creating a novel and complex arena for psychological research. Indeed, a growing body of research has uncovered links between social media use and various aspects of health and wellbeing. However, relatively little work has examined factors that characterize how people experience and regulate their online selves on particular platforms. In the present study, we recruited a large sample of active Instagram users ( = 247; ages 18-58) to complete a questionnaire battery that included measures of participants' social anxiety, their sense of self-worth tied to Instagram use, and specific content control behaviors on the Instagram platform (e.g., editing captions, disabling comments, etc.). Results indicated that participants with higher levels of social anxiety tended to have greater Instagram contingent self-worth, and this was then associated with some content control behaviors, including editing captions and photos and videos when sharing posts. These findings suggest that those who are more socially anxious interact with Instagram differently, and this may arise from self-worth that is wedded to their experiences on the platform. Overall, this work adds to a growing body of research highlighting the benefits and risks of social media use on psychological health.
社交媒体平台为人类提供了前所未有的虚拟联系方式，为心理学研究创造了一个新颖而复杂的领域。事实上，越来越多的研究揭示了社交媒体使用与健康和幸福的各个方面之间的联系。然而，相对较少的研究探讨了影响人们在特定平台上体验和管理其网络自我的因素。在本研究中，我们招募了大量活跃的Instagram用户样本（N = 247；年龄在18 - 58岁之间），让他们完成一系列问卷，这些问卷包括参与者社交焦虑的测量、与Instagram使用相关的自我价值感，以及在Instagram平台上的特定内容控制行为（例如，编辑标题、禁用评论等）。结果表明，社交焦虑水平较高的参与者往往具有更高的Instagram条件性自我价值，这进而与一些内容控制行为相关，包括在分享帖子时编辑标题以及照片和视频。这些发现表明，社交焦虑程度较高的人与Instagram的互动方式不同，这可能源于与他们在该平台上的体验相关的自我价值。总体而言，这项工作为越来越多强调社交媒体使用对心理健康的益处和风险的研究增添了内容。
