Does social media use affect the life satisfaction of young people?
In what follows, please find the results of the most recent and probably largest longitudinal study on the topic -- which has just appeared in the Journal PNAS. 1/11
Together with @OrbenAmy & @ShuhBillSkee we have analyzed data from Understanding Society, the largest panel study worldwide. 8 Waves of data were collected, each separated by 1 year. The results are based on the answers of altogether 5,491 British Youth. @usociety 2/11
The data were analyzed using Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models – after RCTs arguably the best method to estimate causal effects. Using Specification Curve Analyses we ran overall 2,268 models – thereby increasing the results’ robustness. 3/11
Result 1: The effect of social media use on the satisfaction with several domains (life, friends, school) is tiny! On average, changes in use account for less then 1 percent of changes in life satisfaction! 4/11
Result 2: Whereas for boys we find only few significant effects (16%), for girls social media use seems to be more negative (40% sign. effects). However: When comparing the effects directly, they aren’t significantly different from one another – and still trivial in size. 5/11
Result 3: Result go also in the opposite direction: If youths are less satisfied with their lives, afterward they’re using slightly more social media. Again, effects seem larger for girls. 6/11
Limitation 1: Also this study, of course, does not have the final word. For example, social media use was assessed using self-reports – but at least since @mscharkow we know that they are imprecise (doi: 10.1080/19312458.2015.1118446) 7/11
Limitation 2: We analyzed effects across 1 year. However, it’s likely that stronger effects might take place in shorter (or even longer) intervals. 8/11
Implication 1: We should not overestimate the effects of social media. To contextualize: Additional analyses showed that the effects were comparable to youths eating dinner together with their families. Ergo: No reason to panic! 9/11
Implication 2: Effects depend. For example, on domain (satisfaction with friends vs. school), interval, or type of use. Broad generalizations should be avoided! 10/11
Read the paper: Orben, A., Dienlin, T., & Przybylski, A. K. (2019). Social media’s enduring effect on adolescent life satisfaction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. pnas.org/content/early/… @PNASNews #openaccess #opencode 11/11
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