Should you text more?
Here, in five waves of panel data (N = 1,966 US adults), we examined associations between life satisfaction and self-reported use of ten common social technologies measured every 3 months on a six-point frequency scale from ‘I did not use’ to ‘multiple times daily’. At this measurement level and timescale, Bayesian and frequentist random-intercept cross-lagged panel models showed […] The post…
A recent study published in Nature examined the relationship between life satisfaction and various social technologies, using data from 1,966 US adults over a period of three months. The researchers found little evidence to suggest that any social technology use directly predicts subsequent life satisfaction. However, they did note that in certain demographic groups, an increase in life satisfaction was associated with a modest increase in video calling.
On the other hand, higher frequencies of texting were linked to higher life satisfaction, while frequent use of YouTube and TikTok was associated with lower life satisfaction. The study's findings, which were based on random-intercept cross-lagged panel models, suggest that there is minimal evidence of a meaningful relationship between social technology use and life satisfaction.
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