Emotions following social media use and their relations to mental health in young people: An ecological momentary assessment study

Recent theory predicts that young people's emotional reactions are important in the impact of social media use on their mental health. Here we explore this using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) data measuring social media use and emotion within the 2-week ‘Decades-to-minutes’ (D2M) study ( n = 255). Dynamic structural equation modelling (DSEM) was used to examine the within-person relations between social media use and negative emotion (and vice versa), as well as the relations between negative emotions following social media use (defined as the within-person cross-lagged effect of social media use on negative affect) and depression. Results suggested a significant concurrent relation between social media use and negative emotion but no significant association between social media use and later negative emotion, or vice versa. They also suggested no significant relation between negative emotion following social media use and depression but a significant relation between social media inertia (stability of social media use from timepoint to timepoint) and depression. Our study illustrates the feasibility of capturing emotional dynamics in relation to social media use ‘in ecological context’ and their relations to mental health risk. It suggests that patterns of social media use (e.g., sustained versus intermittent use over and above levels of engagement) merit further research attention in terms of their association with mental health. Recommendations for future research include using shorter inter-prompt intervals to capture more immediate emotional reactions to social media use, and the development of more comprehensive EMA measures of social media use. • There are concerns that social media use may negatively impact mental health • We measured social media use in the course of daily life over 2 weeks • We found that social media did not induce negative emotions in daily life • Persistent patterns of social media use in daily life were associated with depression • More social media use in daily life was not associated with higher depression symptoms