Major and Classification
Psychology
Faculty Mentor
Erika A. Patall
Department
Educational Psychology and Technology
Research Gateway Project
“Social Media Use and Psychological Well-Being in Adolescents: A Meta-Analysis”
Project Abstract
Social media has now become an ever present reality in the lives of adolescents. As a result, there has been a substantial amount of research done to look at the relationship between social media use and psychological well-being in the past decade. However, it has yet to be synthesized through a meta-analysis. This will serve to summarize some of the findings that have already been reported from the mixed results reported by the literature. Some studies have shown a positive relationship with variables like social support, while others show a positive relationship between social media and internalizing symptoms. This meta-analysis gives a more complete picture of what multiple studies from across the globe have found on the relationship between social media use and the positive and negative aspects of psychological well-being. An extensive literature search was conducted and empirically synthesized to discuss the implications of the existing research. Increased social media was found to be negatively associated with psychological well-being. In addition, the difference was stronger females than male. However, there was not a difference between those who practice more passive social media use than active social media use.