


































Communication, Society and Media 
ISSN 2576-5388 (Print) ISSN 2576-5396 (Online) 

Vol. 7, No. 2, 2024 

www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 

227 

 

Original Paper 

Social Media and Emotions Literature Review 

How Does Social Media Affect Emotional Wellbeing? 

Jialin Tian
1* 

1 
YK Pao School 

* 
Jialin Tian, YK Pao School 

 

Received: September 20, 2024   Accepted: October 17, 2024   Online Published: November 6, 2024 

doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p227                     URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p227 

 

Abstract 

This paper discusses the research on the influence of social media on wellbeing revealing both costs 

and benefits. Social media as a powerful new technology can promote connections between people, 

facilitate adolescents’ development of relationships, and improve people’s depressive symptoms. On the 

other hand, social media may also increase social comparison, which may lead to depression and 

anxiety; affect adolescents’ identity formation; and induce feelings of loneliness. This paper explores 

the mechanisms behind these influences, concluding that most harms social media have on wellbeing is 

due to the lack of an accurate understanding of social media. This paper first explores the benefits of 

social media, then discusses its negative effects on wellbeing, and finally provides some suggests on 

ways to use social media to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs. 

Keywords 

social media, emotional wellbeing, social comparison, self-isolation, depressive symptoms 

 

As a newly developed technology, social media has become increasingly dominant in people’s lives. As 

of April 2024, 5.07 billion people, which is 62.6% of world’s population, are social media users. 

Surveys show that 90% of teenagers have used social media, it is a prominent part among young 

generation’s lives, and it drastically changes the traditional way of communication, relationship 

maintenance, entertainment etc. People’s attitude toward social media usage has also gradually changed 

from being excited to more careful and concerned. It is important for us to understand its effects on 

people, especially the young generation, to help provide a safer and more positive growing 

environment. 

One of the benefits of social media is that it makes self-disclosure easier to achieve (Walsh et al., 2020). 

Self disclosure is the act of sharing personal information, and it can facilitate the development of social 



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relationships (Yang et al., 2019). On social media, People can self-disclose to their entire friend group 

by posting updates, which is more convenient and immediate compared to offline disclosures. These 

online self-disclosures provides unique benefits for the fulfilment of adolescents’ social needs (Towner 

et al., 2022). Koutamanis et al.’s 2013 study shows that adolescent’s social behaviors on social media 

affects their ability to initiate offline relationships (Koutamanis et al., 2013). It is a longitudinal study 

based on 690 Dutch adolescents between 10-17 years old. Participants’ online self-disclosure is 

measured using a scale developed by Schouten, asking participants to rate when they are using instant 

messaging how much they usually tell close friends about their personal feelings, secrets, and more. 

Participants’ ability to initiate offline friendship is measured using a subscale of a social competence 

scale (asking participants to rank how difficult it was to start a conversation with someone who you did 

not know very well, introduce yourself for the first time to someone, and etc.) Results show that online 

self-disclosure was positively linked with participant’s ability to initiate offline friendships. Moreover, 

Courtois and All’s 2012 study on 352 adolescents demonstrated that social networking services are 

valuable sources of information for offline relationships. For people who scored high on social anxiety 

scale, looking at profiles and interacting with peers on social networking services can alleviate social 

anxiety (Courtois & All, 2012). Browsing other's profile and posts online can help people with social 

anxiety to gain a better understanding of other people's interests and personality, making them more 

comfortable to initiate a conversation (Dolan, 2024).  

In addition, social media’s effect on children should be examined more carefully as it is present 

throughout their developmental stages. According to Vaingankar, youth mainly develop positive mental 

wellbeing through three features on social media: connecting with friends and global community, 

engaging with social media content, and expressing themselves on social media. In his 2022 study, he 

interviewed 25 teenagers shows that these three pathways mentioned before contributed to 5 positive 

mental health components: (1) positive relationships and social capital, (2) self-concept, (3) coping, (4) 

happiness, and (5) other relevant aspects of mental health (positivity, personal growth, and 

psychological well-being) (Vaingankar et al., 2022) The enhanced interaction with friends and 

connecting with others promotes the development of close relationships with mutual trust, recognition, 

and a sense of belonging. The various features and virtual group functions of social media made it 

easier for them to seek a safe space to express their feelings and search for support. These interactions 

allow them to maintain and enhance positive relationship with people, develop self-concept, learn how 

to better cope with emotions, and just simply gain happiness.  

Moreover, social media can also help improve depressive symptoms by creating online health 

communities (Rayland & Andrews, 2023). These groups give people the sense of community with 

others that share similar conditions and concerns. Together they can support each other and create a 

shared faith that is believed to be achieved. The sense of community involves two major aspects: the 



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sense of belonging and the sense of support. The sense of belonging is generated by shared identity, 

which allows people to categorize themselves into an in-group; and trust, which promotes their 

interaction with community members. ―The sense of support is the feeling that members' needs will be 

met by the resources received through their membership in the group.‖ According to studies of uses and 

gratification theory, people can yield three types of support from social media usage: informational, 

emotional, and socializing (Lu et al., 2021). Informational support refers to the knowledge and 

information that users can obtain easily on social media. Knowing more about their disease or 

symptoms can help them alleviate some negative feelings of fear and anxiety, making them more 

confident, improving depressive symptoms. Users can get emotional support through expressing their 

emotions with group members and receiving sympathy and encouragement from others. Social media 

also offers socializing support as it gives people additional opportunities to make new friends. People 

experiencing depressive symptoms view social media as an important channel for interpersonal 

communication. Having the opportunity to regularly connect with friends decreases people’s feeling of 

isolation and gives them social companionship, which leads to higher levels of psychological 

wellbeing.  

The effects discussed above are how social media may positively influence one’s mental wellbeing. But 

on the contrary, social media exposes people to a lot of peer shared content, which encourages them to 

compare themselves with the information they see, performing social comparison. Social comparison is 

defined as people comparing themselves to others and evaluate their personal and social worth 

according to other’s opinions, achievements, and abilities. Social comparison can be sorted into three 

main categories, upward (the target seeming superior), downward (the target being interpreted as 

inferior), and lateral (the target is perceived as equal to oneself) (Samra et al., 2022). It can feel good 

when others on the internet fall short than you such as taking longer to learn an instrument. It can also 

be stressful to look up to the attractive pictures that have been photoshopped to fit into standards of 

beauty that is hardly achievable in real life.  

Most social comparison that social media generates are upward as the information that people share are 

mostly idealized: people tend to share the positive part of their life, called positivity bias, and 

sometimes it is exaggerated or even faked (Krause et al., 2020). Influencers post edited pictures and 

fake information to make their life seem good and make viewers look up to them to gain likes and 

attention. This deliberately chosen information posted can mislead the viewers into believing that what 

they see online is a true reflection of others and thus perceive them as having a better and happier life 

than they are. Upward social comparison is created during this comparison process and is likely to 

result in lower self-esteem and worsened mood (McComb et al., 2023). Continuous exposure to these 

negative emotions and opinions about oneself can possibly lead to depression. Studies (Lie et al., 2018) 

also show that there’s a bidirectional relationship between problematic social media use and depression, 



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suggesting that people may become depressed through social comparison on social media and their 

depression symptoms drive more problematic social media use and social comparison behavior.  

Social comparison from social media contents also plays a crucial role in adolescent’s self-development 

as it is a part in identity formation. This comparison process helps adolescents figure out where they 

stand in terms of beliefs, preferences, and attitudes (Staff, 2023). In a traditional setting, social 

comparison among adolescents is between their peers of similar age, culture, and education level. 

Compared to idealized self-presentations on social media, traditional adolescent community triggers 

more lateral comparison, which is considered less harmful than upwards comparison. This healthy 

social comparison can inspire and motivate adolescents. For example, comparison with classmates in a 

school environment can create motivation to work harder, engage in sport activities, and help them 

develop an appropriate work life balance. However, the modified information on social media is an 

unreachable target for viewers, and since adolescents sometimes lack the ability to recognize fake 

information, they are more susceptible to the negative effects of upward social comparison. They may 

develop depressive symptoms, lower self-esteem, and higher body dissatisfaction, all being indications 

of diminished well-being. 

Nevertheless, problematic social media use can also lead to increase in loneliness and self-isolation. 

Bonsaksen’s study shows that for people who use social media as a mean to maintain relationships, 

more time spent on social media is associated with higher levels of loneliness (Bonsaksen et al., 2023). 

However, this relationship is weaker for people who use social media primarily for other reasons such 

as to avoid difficult feelings. For people who go online to escape burdensome feelings such as boredom 

and simply entertain themselves, time spent on social media doesn’t seem to affect their perception of 

loneliness and connection with other people. When people go online with the intention to maintain 

contact with friends, they anticipate meaningful and real interactions similar to those in real life. 

However, social media as a virtual platform often cannot meet those expectations, making it difficult 

for people to accomplish what they anticipated from a relationship. Therefore, for people with 

intentions of maintaining contacts, more time spent on social media striving for meaningful 

relationships may result in a deeper sense of loneliness.  

So why is some social media beneficial and others are harmful? At the end of the day, social media is 

just a tool. The astonishing features and functions of social media brought by the development of 

internet technology creates many opportunities for people to utilize it for good. But at the same time, 

the lack of understanding on how to use this tool appropriately and manage our expectations can 

negatively affect one’s wellbeing. 

 

 

 



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Conclusion 

Social media is a revolutionary technology. It revolutionizes the traditional way of communication by 

eliminating the physical constraints of distance. It is a great platform for people to connect with others 

around the globe and enhance the communication between groups of different culture and beliefs. Ideas 

from different people clashes and reforms into something better (Bharati et al., 2020). Social media 

allows people to be linked to a greater population and can find more peers of the same interest. 

Moreover, people have more opportunities look out for help in a wider range, they can find resources 

that they didn’t have access to before, receive care from a greater group, and perhaps find other people 

struggling on the same problem they are facing and support each other. 

A lot of harm people experience from social media usage is due to the lack of self-awareness of their 

social media habits and how social media is affecting them (Kalinin & Edguer, 2023). Blindly 

believing information online creates unhealthy upward social comparison, and their self-satisfaction 

lowers every time they do that. Believing that social media can substitute in-person communications 

also makes people’s expectations fall flat when they fail to maintain the same level of connection on 

social media as in real life. These negative effects can be avoided by acknowledging these features and 

develop a clear and adequate expectation of the use of social media. If one knows that the content on 

social media is biased and it only shows the best part of other’s life, they are less likely to compare 

themselves to those idealized images as they understand that this social comparison is unfair. Also, if 

one understands that social media as a virtual platform is different from offline interactions as a lot of 

information such as eye contact and body language are not present, they will lower their expectation on 

the interactions on social media and therefore be less likely to be disappointed and avoid developing 

senses of loneliness. 

Social media is still a relatively new tool. People are still in the stage of developing and exploring it. 

Even though there are some concerns on how social media may negatively affects emotional wellbeing, 

there’re still a lot of potential and beneficiaries of utilizing it. To understand social media and 

understand how we can use it appropriately to avoid those damages is more important than simply 

staying away from it. 

 

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