Social media and smartphone usage in college students: associations with perceived relationship quality, depressive cognition, mood, and well-being

Abstract

In the past decade, there has been an explosion of smartphone utilization and social media usage, particularly among young adults. Both in popular culture and among researchers, there have been concerns about the effects of social media use on psychological well-being and mental health outcomes. This study included both passive and active longitudinal data collection to assess the links between social interaction variables and mental health variables. Participants were 113 college students who installed a monitoring application on their smartphones, completed daily surveys, and allowed the app to collect relevant passive data over a two-week period. Concurrent hierarchical correlations and regressions suggested that neither the frequency of electronic communication nor social media use were associated with daily mental health variables. However, when individuals reported experiencing positive social interactions, they also reported greater well-being and positive affect and less depressive cognition and negative affect on the same day. Hierarchical cross-lagged regressions revealed that none of the social interaction variables predicted next day mental health variables. However, increased negative affect on a given day predicted lower quality social interactions the next day, and increased well-being predicted higher quality social interactions and use of social media the next day. Finally, rumination (a known correlate of depression), moderated the relationship between perceived quality of social interactions and depressive cognition, such that high ruminators experienced more depressive cognition, even when experiencing positive interactions with others. Taken together, the results suggest that the context of interactions may matter much more than the frequency of electronic communication or social media use. Recommendations for future research in contextualizing social media use on smartphones and additional mental health and well-being factors are discussed.