The Relationship Between Social Media Use and Stress in College Students
Abstract
Social media sites have flourished as young adults are spending increasing amounts of time using them (Lee & Cheung, 2014). Previous research indicated that social media could provide social support and increase a person's social well-being (Lee, Noh, and Koo, 2013) as well as build social connections that affect emotional development (Bourgeois, Bower, and Carroll, 2014). Whether college students' stress can be attributed to or, contrastingly, relieved by the use of social media has not been fully explored. The present study thus aims to determine the relationship between stress and social media usage. Three hundred and ninety participants (male = 90) college students, with ages ranging from 18 to 34, completed an online survey designed to measure various social media activities and subjective stress frequency and intensity. While no gender differences were found, the results show a significant correlation between stress frequency and cell phone use for social media, as well as stress frequency and social media activity. Implications will be discussed at the conference.
Session Name:
Stressed Out: College Students
Start Date
10-4-2015 9:00 AM
End Date
10-4-2015 10:00 AM
Location
HSB 304
The Relationship Between Social Media Use and Stress in College Students
HSB 304
Social media sites have flourished as young adults are spending increasing amounts of time using them (Lee & Cheung, 2014). Previous research indicated that social media could provide social support and increase a person's social well-being (Lee, Noh, and Koo, 2013) as well as build social connections that affect emotional development (Bourgeois, Bower, and Carroll, 2014). Whether college students' stress can be attributed to or, contrastingly, relieved by the use of social media has not been fully explored. The present study thus aims to determine the relationship between stress and social media usage. Three hundred and ninety participants (male = 90) college students, with ages ranging from 18 to 34, completed an online survey designed to measure various social media activities and subjective stress frequency and intensity. While no gender differences were found, the results show a significant correlation between stress frequency and cell phone use for social media, as well as stress frequency and social media activity. Implications will be discussed at the conference.