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To what extent is social media bad for our psychological well-being?

Humans have craved to connect and share their stories for as long as we have records of, but
possibly we have now reached the epitome of communication. Recently Zuckerbergs law
was created, which states that the amount of information people share every year on
Facebook is going to double (Boutin, 2011). Further, around one million selfies are uploaded
daily on social networking sites (SNSs) (uk, 2014), which has lead researchers to believe
that social networkers are becoming increasingly narcissistic (Rosen, Whaling, Rab, Carrier,
& Cheever, 2013). Taking into account how widespread the use of social media has become,
and how it is popularly believed to be detrimental, it is important to examine its potential
impact on our psychological well-being. Although continuously being redefined,
psychological well-being is generally described as a sum of ones satisfaction about major
life domains including job, life purpose, and quality of individual and social life -, as well
as a balance between positive and negative emotions and moods (Winefield, Gill, Taylor, &
Pilkington, 2012; Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999; Kahneman, 2011). In this essay I will
analyse how social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr) can affect it by
firstly clarifying the difference between active and passive use of SNSs, and then
demonstrating how active use fosters social connectedness and positive emotional contagion.
Subsequently, I will show that narcissism derived from social media can be beneficial to our
psychological well-being. Finally, I will explain how social media allows us to write our life
story and determine how pleased we will be about it. I will argue that, when used actively,
social media can improve our psychological well-being by boosting our positive feelings,
connectedness and confidence, as well as by making us overall more satisfied with our lives.
Before delving into its effects, it is important to establish that there are essentially two types
of social media use - passive and active - which influence the feelings that result from our
online experience. Indeed, one of the main reasons why research is so divided in the view of
the emotional consequences of social media could be the lack of distinction between them
(Burke, Marlow, & Lento, 2010). Burke and colleagues (2010) found that active interaction
with others through social media, that is, messaging friends, and posting and liking statuses,
was positively related with subjects feelings of connectedness. Conversely, passive
consumption of content was associated with loneliness. This finding is further backed by
Wise, Alhabash and Park (2010), who measured skin-conductance and facial expressions
during Facebook use, and observed that actively using it was accompanied by physiological

indicators of happiness, which were inexistent when participants passively scrolled through
Facebook feeds. In short, keenly engaging in the many possibilities of social media seems to
lead to feelings of social connectedness, which in turn can improve our psychological wellbeing, while the opposite happens with passive use. It is crucial to make this distinction clear,
seeing that the answer to this essays question is dependent on it.
When users actively participate in social media, they are taking advantage of an
unprecedented ability to better connect with the world. Social media provides the means to
cross the physical limits of social connection. We can now share our academic triumph with
our parents by uploading an Instagram picture of our successful essay, and they can
immediately feedback this by sending their congratulations and a video of our baby sisters
first steps. In fact, researchers at the University of Texas (Valenzuela, Park, & Kee, 2009)
conducted a survey in two campuses and observed that social media users experienced more
individual satisfaction, and social reliance and connectedness. This relationship, however,
was not too substantial, meaning that social media cannot be the only contributor to an
individuals social life. Nevertheless, it still contradicts the idea defended by researchers over
the years that social media use is degenerative to social engagement, causing loneliness
(Burke, et al., 2010; Rosen, et al., 2013). This suggests that social media could be favourable
to our psychological well-being, as it leads us to feel more united with our social world, thus
improving the quality of our interpersonal life. Having shown how social networking benefits
us as groups, it is necessary to determine the effects it has on our individual emotions.
Social media users frequently engage in public share of emotions, and exposure to these can
affect our own mental and emotional states. Yet, though this is commonly used to explain the
incidence of depression on social networkers (Rosen, et al., 2013), emotional contagion is
greater for positive than negative emotions. This was ingeniously demonstrated by Coviello
and colleagues (2014), who collected data from millions of Facebook users during rainfall
and clear days, and saw that each positive post by a person experiencing rainfall would
decrease the total number of their friends negative posts. Likewise, each negative post would
decrease the total number of their friends positive posts. Remarkably, optimistic reports of
the weather had a stronger impact than negative ones. It is possible to see from this that social
media could be affecting our psychological well-being by interfering with our balance of
positive and negative emotions. That is, if someone associates online with people who
express more cheerful attitudes, they may adopt a more positive outlook of the world

themselves. This can lead them to experiencing a larger proportion of positive emotions, thus
improving their psychological well-being. Additionally, scholars at the University of
California (Master, et al., 2009) found that just seeing photos of loved ones, which happens as
individuals look at social media updates, can inspire mental representations of loving and
connectedness, which act as a shield against pain and unpleasant feelings. Naturally,
experiencing a less negative mental and physical state is a boost for psychological well-being.
Still, as I will argue next, emotional contagion is not the only way in which mood can be
lifted.
Narcissism, commonly identified in social media users, has positive consequences both in our
emotional state and in our perception of life. For years, narcissism has been correlated with
heavy use of social media (Rosen, et al., 2013), and often seen as a negative consequence of
the adherence to SNSs. However, as Miller and Campbell (2008) argue, it has simply been
misinterpreted as a maladaptive trait, or confused with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Indeed, Twenge, Konrath, Foster, Campbell, and Bushman (2008) observed that students
displaying narcissistic attitudes were in fact more extraverted, confident and assertive, and
experienced more positive emotional states and greater life-satisfaction. Aside the immediate
effects of positive emotional states and life-satisfaction on psychological well-being, there are
other ways in which narcissism can serve as an advantage. It has been consistently shown, for
instance, that people with higher self-esteem have a greater ability to attain more desirable
jobs and promotions (Anderson, Brion, Moore, & Kennedy, 2012). Taking into account that
greater job satisfaction is a factor influencing overall life-satisfaction, aiding self-confidence
is another way in which narcissism boosts psychological well-being. We have seen how
social media can directly enhance psychological well-being, but perhaps its major role is in
how it can shape individuals perception of their lives.
Social media is a unique set of tools that allows us to design how we remember our lives,
which ultimately determines our overall life-satisfaction. This is explained by Nobel Prize
winner Daniel Kahneman (2011), who argues that we have two selves the experiencing
self and the remembering self (p.408). Put simply, the former lives in and knows nothing
but the present it experiences-, whereas the latter is responsible for our memories, and
keeps track of our life. Through his research, Kahneman found that these have different
impacts on our perception of life, observing that individuals put a greater significance in the
memories they form, than in their present experiences. For instance, he asked subjects to

imagine that they would go on a two-week vacation, but at the end all their photos and videos
would be deleted, and they would become amnesic. When asked if, given this fact, they
would change the details of the trip, several participants said they would not even bother
going at all. Moreover, he argued that if the remembering self holds our life narrative, then it
is where we look into when evaluating how pleased we have been with our existence.
However, there is an unfortunate drawback to it not everything is remembered. As he puts
it, more significant moments or moments on which people spend more time reminiscing are
better remembered. This is where social media comes in. It allows us to keep track of our
most endeared life moments, and further, to choose how we immortalise the present, by how
we take pictures and photo-filter them, how we write our blog entries and what statuses we
post. We are truly the architects of our life story, hence we decide how satisfied were going
to be about it.
This essay has exposed several evidence that seems to suggest that to some extent, when used
actively, social media can have positive repercussions on psychological well-being. It does so
by making individuals feel more connected with the world, experience more positive moods,
have a higher sense of self-esteem, and by making them more content with their lives.
Possibly the most important idea put forward was that social media allows users to shape how
they will remember their lives, for better or for worse, and almost hack into their perception
of life-satisfaction. This is vital as it could have implications on helping people recovering
from disorders related with negative perceptions of oneself and the world. Undoubtedly, there
is still a lack of practical research into how social media can be used for these ends. In an era
when psychology is shifting from studying abnormality, to studying human improvement
(Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005), it may well be that social media will have a
greater role to play than we might expect.

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