Investigating the complex relationship between social media use and Mental Health in the digital era
Theme: Mental Health in a digital age
Type of research: quantitative empirical
Description:
We live in a digital age, where people's means and channels of communication have shifted to those enabled by social media. While the accessibility of these channels goes in hand with infinite new possibilities of connecting and sharing, there are many factors at play in how this easy accessibility may affect the end-users from a psychological point of view. Recent research highlights that the impact of social media use on well-being is not straightforward and significantly based on various factors – these may include the origin/nature of social media use (passive vs. active), type of content consumed, and individual user characteristics. In this research project, the focus lies on the exploration of those factors, focusing on possible determinants of the overall relationship between social media use and mental health/ well-being (you are encouraged to get creative in the development of your own theoretical model!). This assignment can be done by multiple students, when laying focus on different factors and determinants individually of course. The idea is to come up with practical recommendations as well.
Example research question: Do individuals engaging in active content creation on social media report different levels of well-being compared to passive consumers of social media content?