Longitudinal survey finds little evidence that social tech predicts life satisfaction in adults
Social technologies, digital tools that allow people to communicate and share content with each other online, have become a central way of communicating for many people worldwide. Yet the possible effects of these technologies on the well-being and life satisfaction of regular users are still widely debated.
A longitudinal survey conducted by researchers from Georgetown University, the University of Southern California, and the University of California, Berkeley found little evidence that social technology use predicts changes in life satisfaction among adults in the United States. The study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, aimed to understand the impact of social media and interactive platforms on the well-being of U.S. adults.
The researchers surveyed 1,966 individuals across five survey rounds conducted three months apart, using a nationally representative probability-based sample recruited through the Understanding America Study. They measured participants' frequency of use for 10 social technologies, including FaceTime, texting, WhatsApp, email, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, X, TikTok, and YouTube. Participants' life satisfaction was assessed using an established three-item scale.
The study aimed to address two questions: whether frequent use of a specific platform leads to greater or lesser life satisfaction, and whether an individual's life satisfaction changes as their use of a platform increases. The researchers employed a Bayesian approach to analyze the data, allowing them to determine whether the observed effects were credible rather than just statistically significant.
The findings revealed no credible evidence that changes in social technology use predicted life satisfaction three months later for any of the examined platforms, including Instagram and TikTok, despite widespread debate about their potential effects. Similarly, no credible evidence was found that social technology use differed among demographic subgroups, such as men and women, people with varying income levels, or different age groups.
However, the study did identify a potential correlation: higher life satisfaction was modestly associated with increases in video calling among some demographic groups. It is important to note that the study only surveyed adult participants, so these findings do not imply that social media is harmless for children or adolescents.
The researchers acknowledge that future studies could benefit from using more objective techniques to measure social technology use, such as device-level data from tech companies, to better understand the relationship between these platforms and well-being.
Written by urgent.news from Phys.org's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
