Is social media use related to sleep quality, self-esteem, anxiety and depression in adolescence?

Scott, Holly (2015) Is social media use related to sleep quality, self-esteem, anxiety and depression in adolescence? University of Glasgow. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Recent evidence is increasingly linking social media use with various aspects of wellbeing, particularly in adolescents. The current study aims to add to this literature by investigating how adolescents’ social media use relates to sleep quality, self-esteem, anxiety and depression levels. Furthermore, this study is the first to examine how emotional investment in social media relates to these aspects of wellbeing. 467 adolescents completed questionnaire measures of overall and nighttime social media use, as well as the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and Social Media Use Integration Scale. Overall social media use, nighttime social media use and emotional investment in social media were each significantly related to poorer sleep quality, lower self-esteem, and higher anxiety and depression levels. Together, social media measures explained 13.5% of the variance in sleep quality, and nighttime social media use was a significant predictor of poor sleep quality after controlling for anxiety, depression and self-esteem. These results highlight both the timing of social media use and emotional investment in social media as important factors that merit further investigation with relation to adolescent wellbeing. The results of this study have the potential to inform interventions aimed at improving adolescents’ sleep quality or educating young people and parents about healthy social media use.