Passief gebruik van sociale netwerksites en het zelfbeeld: De rol van opwaartse sociale vergelijking

Abstract

Over the years both passive and active use of social media among adolescents appears to have risen sharply. Social media consists of instant messaging apps (IM) and social networking sites (SNS). The increase in the use of social media means that there are more opportunities for adolescents to make social comparisons, which can have negative consequences. These social comparisons can be divided into upward and downward comparison. Downward comparison results in an increase of one’s self-esteem, whereas upward social comparison exhibits the opposite effect. An upward social comparison turns out to lead to a more negative self-esteem. This study investigates whether there is a relationship between passive use of SNS and self-esteem and whether this relationship is mediated by upward social comparisons. This study uses data from the Digital Youth Project in which 2709 adolescents participated, with aged varying between 11 and 17 years old. By means of an online questionnaire, answers were obtained on the Rosenberg Self- esteem scale, the question 'How often a day do you look on social network sites’ and five questions that measure how often a person has certain thoughts when he or she sees messages, photos or videos of peers via SNS. PROCESS macro is used to determine the mediation effect of upward social comparison. The results suggest that there is no direct relationship between passive use of SNS and self-esteem, so there is no mediation. Upward social comparison, on the other hand, appeared to have a significant negative correlation with self-esteem.