Social media, social comparison, and its impact on mental health and well-being of McMaster University undergraduate students

Abstract

While social media use in Canada continues to rapidly increase, university students are also experiencing unprecedented levels of mental health concerns and crises (Primack et al., 2017; Wiens et al., 2020). Given these trends, it has become increasingly important to examine the ways in which social media use may or may not play a role in mental health outcomes. Due to the multifaceted nature of social media use, our research sought to specifically examine social media use though the lens of social comparison. The present research questions aimed to investigate the relationship between social media, social comparison, and McMaster University undergraduate mental health outcomes. Utilizing a mixed methods approach, our team created and distributed an online anonymous survey which included both quantitative and qualitative questions. This survey accumulated 14 complete responses, in which statistical software was used for quantitative analysis, and thematic analysis used for the qualitative responses. Our research found that while participants did report engaging in social comparison, when focusing specifically on mental health outcomes after social media use, participants reported positive, rather than negative, experiences and outcomes. The ever increasing and multifaceted nature of social media use among younger generations calls for the continued presence of critical research regarding this topic. The present research has made a critical contribution to the existing literature on this subject by discovering a caveat to much of the existing findings. That is, that social media use, even when instigating social comparison, may not affect one's mental health or can even produce positive mental health outcomes for users.