Time Spent on Social Media |
Social media and Emotions |
Many studies conducted within the past 20 years focus primarily on Facebook. Facebook's self-proclaimed mission is to facilitated a positive environment online by "staying connected to friends and family" and being able to "share and express what really matter to them" (Facebook, 2017). However, many studies have found that and increased time on Facebook is associated with an the facilitation of a negative environment online (Steers et al., 2016). In 2014 Facebook claimed that their average user spends approximately 40 minutes per day on Facebook and in the most recent statistical update from September 2017, there are about 1.37 billion active users daily (Facebook, 2017). A study conducted on college students (Steers et al., 2016) also determined that there is a positive prediction between time spent on Facebook and anxiety.
It has also been found that increased time spend on social networking sites is correlated to an increase in internet addiction. Internet addiction is one of the primary causes of anxiety in adolescents (McNicol et al., 2017). They have the potential to rely on online activities to avoid negative feelings. When the internet is used excessively to cope with negative psychological states, like anxiety, it causes adolescents to rely on the internet more for social support. Internet addiction also causes anxiety in adolescents who experience high levels of psychological distress. People who use maladaptive coping styles, like avoidance, and who rely on the internet to modify their mood are also more likely to experience increased levels of anxiety. (McNicol et al., 2017) An individual who has a large number of "friends" on Facebook and struggles with preexisting anxiety will spend an excessive amount of time on Facebook. Incidentally, more time spent on Facebook is positively correlated with an increases in anxiety and stress, which can lead to upper respiratory infections (Campisi et al., 2017.). Upper respiratory infection, as well as other health concerns, have been linked to anxiety and the use of social networking sites. As stated before, Facebook induced anxiety and stress leads to logging into Facebook more frequently and the vicious cycle continues. (Campisi et al., 2017, McNicol et al., 2017, Steers et al., 2016) |
According to Cleland Woods , adolescents experience higher levels of anxiety when their access to the internet, texting, and social media is restricted. Emotional investment is one of the main causes of anxiety involving social media. The emotional investment adolescents put into social media sites are due to the feelings of distress and isolation they experience when they are not connected to social media platforms. “...social pressure to be constantly available led young adults to experience feelings of stress, guilt, and isolation when they did not respond to messages immediately”(Thomee et al., 2010). Adolescents who spend an immense amount of time online and using social media networks are more prone to experience increased levels of anxiety. Anxiety can also fester from the inability to sleep due to the anxiety of missing out on new messages or content in the social media world.
Emotional ContagionEmotional contagion is the synchronization of mood, emotions, attitude, and can even extend to beliefs (Steers et al., 2016, Kramer et al., 2014). As people are spending more time on Facebook and other social media platforms, it is believed that emotions are being transferred through screens as well. More intense moods, such as sadness/depression and joy/happiness have been found to have longer lasting and stronger contagion. However, there have been many speculations on whether seeing positive posts boost positivity or if they cause sadness and depression. The "alone together" social comparison effect predicts that seeing the positive posts will make people sad as they long for other's happiness and view life as unfair (Turkle, 2011, Kramer et al., 2014). In a study on emotional contagion and Facebook it was found that when less positive posts were shown on Facebook, users would post negative content and vice versa (Kramer et al. 2014, Steers et al., 2016).
CoruminationOne of the symptoms of both anxiety and depression is rumination and corumination. Corumination is repeatedly discussing anxiety and stress with peers and receiving positive feedback for doing so. Corumination also leads to an increase in anxiety and depression. Corumination occurs very frequently on social media and is encouraged by the platforms. If someone ruminates their negative feeling on Facebook and their post get "liked" multiple times and friends comment encouraging messages they are participating in corumination. (Ehrenreich et al., 2016).
|