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Content appraisal and age moderate the relationship between passive social media use and mental ill-being

Evans, Olivia; Hardacre, Stephanie; Rubin, Mark; Tran, Max

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Authors

Olivia Evans

Stephanie Hardacre

Max Tran



Abstract

An important distinction to make when assessing the impact of social media use on mental health is whether the use is passive (e.g., browsing) or active (e.g., posting). Recent research suggests that the connection between passive social media use and mental ill-being is inconsistent, with some research finding a significant negative association, while other research finds no such association. In the present research, we sought to investigate this relationship, as well as two potential moderators of this relationship: the subjective appraisal of social media content social media users consume (i.e., positively or negatively-appraised) and age of users. In a cross-sectional survey of Australian and United States Facebook users (N = 991), there was no direct relationship between passive use and mental ill-being, however user age and positive (but not negative) content appraisal were found to moderate the relationship between passive use and mental ill-being. Specifically, the relationship between passive use and mental ill-being became weaker as subjective positive appraisal increased, and it reversed to become negative at high levels of positive appraisal. Additionally, the positive relationship between passive use and mental ill-being became weaker as age of social media users increased, and the direction of this relationship became negative at the oldest ages of social media users. These results suggest that the relationship between social media use and mental ill-being is more nuanced than previous research suggests. In particular, higher amounts of passive Facebook use may have a less negative, or even a positive effect on social media users’ mental health when the content being (passively) consumed is positively appraised, or when users are older.

Citation

Evans, O., Hardacre, S., Rubin, M., & Tran, M. (2023). Content appraisal and age moderate the relationship between passive social media use and mental ill-being. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, Article 1181233. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1181233

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 27, 2023
Online Publication Date Jul 14, 2023
Publication Date 2023-07
Deposit Date Dec 12, 2023
Publicly Available Date Dec 12, 2023
Journal Frontiers in Psychology
Print ISSN 1664-1078
Electronic ISSN 1664-1078
Publisher Frontiers Media
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 14
Article Number 1181233
DOI https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1181233
Keywords General Psychology
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2023725

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2023 Evans, Hardacre, Rubin and Tran. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in
accordance with accepted academic practice.
No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms





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