Abstract
Adolescents are developmentally motivated to engage in social comparisons, and social media platforms provide abundant social information that facilitate comparisons. Despite the potential to trigger immediate emotional responses, little research has examined the day-to-day naturalistic occurrence of these comparisons and coinciding effects. Across fourteen days, 94 adolescents (51% female, Mage = 16.47) reported how their life compared to others’ lives on social media three times per day. Lateral comparisons were far more common than upward or downward comparisons and were not consistently correlated with self-evaluations (self-esteem, social connectedness, appearance satisfaction). Overall depressive symptoms was a risk factor for engaging in upward comparisons. When adolescents reported engaging in upward (relative to downward) comparisons at a given time point, they reported poorer self-esteem. When adolescents reported engaging in downward (relative to lateral) comparisons at a given time point, they reported greater self-esteem. Although rare, directional comparisons have in-the-moment associations with self-evaluations.
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This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health grant R01DA039923 and the Winston Family Foundation.
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KB conceptualized the research question, conducted analyses, and drafted the manuscript. JT assisted with research question conceptualization and provided critical feedback on the manuscript. MJP and EHT conducted the study and provided critical feedback on the manuscript.
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Study procedures were approved by the UNC Chapel Hill Institutional Review Board, Protocol #16-1266 and were performed in line with the standards put forth by the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki.
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Handling Editor: Linda Camras
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Burnell, K., Trekels, J., Prinstein, M.J. et al. Adolescents’ Social Comparison on Social Media: Links with Momentary Self-Evaluations. Affec Sci (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-024-00240-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-024-00240-6