ABSTRACT

Social media use has a weak, negative association with well-being in cross-sectional and longitudinal research, but this association in experimental studies is mixed. This investigation explores whether social media abstinence leads to improved daily well-being over four weeks of time. Community and undergraduate participants (N = 130) were randomly assigned to five experimental conditions: no change in social media use, and one week, two weeks, three weeks, and four weeks abstinence from social media (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat). All participants completed a daily diary measuring loneliness, well-being, and quality of day. Results showed no main effect of social media abstinence. The duration of abstinence was not associated with change in outcomes and order of abstinence did not explain variance in outcomes. Results are consistent with trivial effects detected in large cross-sectional research, and call into question the causal relationship between social media and well-being on the daily level.

摘要

在横断面和纵向研究中，社交媒体的使用与幸福感之间存在微弱的负相关关系，但是在实验研究中，这种关联是混杂的。这项调查探讨了社交媒体的禁欲是否会在四个星期的时间内改善每日的健康状况。社区和本科生（N= 130）被随机分配到五个实验条件：社交媒体使用无变化，以及社交媒体（即Facebook，Twitter，Instagram，Snapchat）禁欲一周，两周，三周和四周。所有参与者都完成了每天的日记，以衡量孤独感，幸福感和一天的质量。结果显示，禁欲对社交媒体没有任何主要影响。禁欲的持续时间与结果的变化无关，禁欲的顺序也不能解释结果的差异。结果与在大型横截面研究中发现的琐碎结果一致，并且使人们怀疑社交媒体与日常福祉之间的因果关系。