De Relatie tussen Welzijn en Sociale Media bij Tieners van 10 tot 15 jaar

Abstract

Social media is used by a lot of people nowadays, also by teenagers. In the last couple of years there has been a lot of attention towards the negative influences of social media. However, our well-being did not change in the past couple of years. The current research aims to investigate if there is a relation between the amount of social media use among teenagers between 10 and 15 years old and their well-being, divided into negative mood and life-satisfaction. Sex differences are also taken into account. To answer this question 1029 Dutch teenagers were surveyed using an online questionnaire at home. The results reveal that more social media use is significantly related to a more negative mood. There was a stronger relation between more social media use and a more negative mood in girls than in boys. No significant relation was found between the amount of social media use and life satisfaction among teenagers. There seems to be a difference in the temporary (negative mood) and prolonged (life satisfaction) relations between social media and well-being. The overall coherence of these two variables might be more nuanced, whereby the negative relations are only small.