Social media usage data collection and analysis
Data for this study was collected through an anonymous online survey that was distributed to high school students aged 14 to 18 years old from three different public schools located in suburbs of a major city. The survey gathered information on the participants’ social media usage habits, frequency of usage of different social media platforms, time spent on social media daily, as well as subjective well-being and mental health through standardized questionnaires. A total of 450 survey responses were received and after removing incomplete responses, 400 responses were analyzed for this study.
Of the 400 participants, 200 were female and 200 were male. The average age of participants was 16 years. In terms of social media usage, 98% of participants reported having accounts on at least one major social media platform such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat. The most commonly used platform was Instagram, with 350 participants (87.5% of the total) reporting having an Instagram account. Facebook was the second most popular, used by 320 participants (80%). Males reported slightly higher usage of platforms like YouTube (84% of males vs 78% of females) and Snapchat (72% vs 68%) whereas females reported higher usage of Instagram (90% vs 85%) and Pinterest (44% vs 8%).
In terms of time spent on social media daily, the average time reported was 3 hours and 12 minutes. There was significant variation, with times ranging from just 10 minutes to over 8 hours daily. 71 participants (17.75% of total) reported spending 4 hours or more on social media daily. The times also varied based on gender, with males on average spending 15 minutes more time daily on social media compared to females.
To analyze the relationship between social media usage and mental well-being, survey responses on daily hours spent on social media were grouped into four categories – less than 1 hour, 1-2 hours, 2-4 hours and more than 4 hours. Standardized questionnaires on depressive symptoms (PHQ-9), anxiety symptoms (GAD-7), stress levels (PSS) and life satisfaction (SWLS) were used to measure participants’ mental health and well-being. Higher scores on PHQ-9, GAD-7 and PSS questionnaires indicate worse mental health whereas higher scores on SWLS indicate better subjective well-being.
The mean scores on the various mental health questionnaires across the different social media usage time groups are shown in Table 1 below:
TABLE 1
Social Media Usage Time Daily
PHQ-9 Score
GAD-7 Score
PSS Score
SWLS Score
Less than 1 hour (n=125)
5.32
4.12
14.25
21.89
1-2 hours (n=140)
6.17
5.03
15.81
20.72
2-4 hours (n=64)
7.33
6.12
17.43
19.14
More than 4 hours (n=71)
8.91
7.32
19.52
17.32
One-way ANOVA tests were conducted to analyze if differences between the mean scores of the groups were statistically significant. For all four mental health questionnaires, the differences between the means of the four groups were found to be statistically significant at the p < 0.05 level. Post-hoc Tukey tests revealed that for PHQ-9, GAD-7 and PSS, the >4 hours group had significantly higher (worse) mean scores than the <1 hour and 1-2 hours groups. For SWLS, the >4 hours group had a significantly lower (worse) mean score than the <1 hour and 1-2 hours groups. To adjust for potential confounding factors like age, gender, family situation and academic performance, multiple linear regression analyses were conducted with PHQ-9, GAD-7, PSS and SWLS scores as dependent variables and social media usage time, age, gender, family situation and academic performance as independent variables. The results are summarized in Tables 2 to 5 below: TABLE 2 PHQ-9 Regression Model Independent Variable β coefficient p value Social media usage time 0.154 0.001 Age 0.085 0.034 Gender -0.032 0.452 Family situation 0.092 0.051 Academic performance -0.121 0.009
TABLE 3 GAD-7 Regression Model Independent Variable β coefficient p value Social media usage time 0.132 0.003 Age 0.062 0.121 Gender -0.052 0.276 Family situation 0.102 0.024 Academic performance -0.102 0.017 TABLE 4 PSS Regression Model Independent Variable β coefficient p value Social media usage time 0.187 <0.001 Age 0.102 0.021 Gender -0.072 0.142 Family situation 0.112 0.008 Academic performance -0.152 0.001 TABLE 5 SWLS Regression Model Independent Variable β coefficient p value Social media usage time -0.152 0.002 Age -0.052 0.231 Gender 0.032 0.453 Family situation -0.092 0.051 Academic performance 0.121 0.009 The regression analyses revealed that after adjusting for confounding factors, higher social media usage time was still statistically significantly associated with higher depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, perceived stress and lower life satisfaction. Higher academic performance was associated with better mental health outcomes whereas family situation was also found to significantly impact some indicators of mental health and well-being. Gender differences were not statistically significant in the regression models. The results of the survey analysis provide evidence that higher social media usage time is associated with worse mental health outcomes in teenagers such as higher depressive symptoms, anxiety, stress and lower life satisfaction. These relationships remained statistically significant even after adjusting for potential confounding sociodemographic factors. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed in further detail below.
Andrew Stroud