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#Smiling, #Venting, or Both? Adolescents’ Social Sharing of Emotions on Social Media
Abstract
Although social media offer adolescents new possibilities for emotion regulation, little is known about how adolescents use different platforms to this end. This study adds to the emotion regulation literature and affordances-of-technologies perspective by describing whether and how adolescents use different social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, 9Gag, and blogs) for emotion sharing and how technical, social, and contextual factors influence these practices. In-depth interviews with 22 adolescents aged 14 to 18 show that adolescents share emotions on multiple of these platforms. Although the different platforms have similar affordances, their social norms clearly differ and influence adolescents’ online behavior. Facebook statuses, Instagram, and Snapchat are mostly used for sharing positive emotions, if emotions are shared at all. Twitter and Messenger, on the other hand, are also used for sharing negative emotions, albeit for different reasons.
... (Radovic et al., 2017). By sharing emotions, Vermeulen et al. (2018) found that adolescents were more likely to regulate The Social Media Connection 17 their emotions, finding that "venting" online gave relief from negative emotions. Venting, or expressing negative feelings with the goal of relieving the emotional tensions an individual may be experiencing (Vermeulen et al., 2018). ...
... By sharing emotions, Vermeulen et al. (2018) found that adolescents were more likely to regulate The Social Media Connection 17 their emotions, finding that "venting" online gave relief from negative emotions. Venting, or expressing negative feelings with the goal of relieving the emotional tensions an individual may be experiencing (Vermeulen et al., 2018). However, venting on social media only provides a brief break from the negative emotions being felt, resulting in individuals needing to vent, or post more negatively more often in order to maintain an increased affect (Vermeulen et al., 2018). ...
... Venting, or expressing negative feelings with the goal of relieving the emotional tensions an individual may be experiencing (Vermeulen et al., 2018). However, venting on social media only provides a brief break from the negative emotions being felt, resulting in individuals needing to vent, or post more negatively more often in order to maintain an increased affect (Vermeulen et al., 2018). In accordance with previous research, this study hypothesizes the following: ...
... This discussion will highlight what adolescent receivers can do through private messaging channels (e.g., text message, Instagram, and WhatsApp), while also noting how the experience of cybergossip may be different across various platforms. Communication via private messaging is adolescents' most frequent method of electronic communication with friends (e.g., Anderson & Jiang, 2018), but is also the most challenging to feel connected with others due to the lack of visual (i.e., facial expressions), tonal (i.e., intonation), and physical (i.e., touch) cues (Vermeulen et al., 2018b). ...
... Online private messaging channels are popular for adolescent communication (e.g., Anderson & Jiang, 2018;Throuvala et al., 2019). However, visual, tonal, and physical cues are frequently lacking (Vermeulen et al., 2018b), and discerning the sharer's intent poses an even bigger challenge for receivers of cybergossip (Romera et al., 2018). As such, it is important to understand how digital communication has affected social conversations with friends. ...
... Text-based communication (e.g., text message, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Snapchat messenger) without using features such as photo sharing or voice notes (i.e., short audio messages) are missing tonal, visual, and physical cues, which are essential for interacting (Bastiaensens et al., 2015;Dennis et al., 2008;Gooch & Watts, 2015;Van Cleemput, 2012). As such, these types of exchanges are often subject to miscommunication or misunderstandings (Romera et al., 2018), which adolescents recognize (Vermeulen et al., 2018a(Vermeulen et al., , 2018b. In-person gossip is often accompanied by nonverbal cues like whispering or closing a door (Fan & Dawson, 2022). ...
Gossip is an important part of adolescent development. Although gossip can be used for negative influence, it can also be used for positive relational purposes such as establishing norms and creating intimacy. Discerning the gossip sharer's motives is important for receivers to determine how to react. However, the lack of visual and tonal cues in online exchanges can create miscommunications and misunderstandings about gossip intentions. Research has not yet identified a theoretical framework that can address the added interpersonal challenges of sharing gossip in online settings (i.e., cybergossip). A theory to consider addressing this gap is social presence theory (SPT). This article will argue how SPT can provide a framework for understanding the motivations and needs of gossip sharers in online settings and explain how receivers can promote social presence and mitigate the spread of cybergossip.
... The inclusion of various social circles within one's Facebook Friends list, encompassing not only close friends but also family members, colleagues, and acquaintances, gives rise to the phenomenon known as context collapse, where multiple audiences converge within a single context (boyd, 2008). This context collapse engenders a sense of caution among users when it comes to sharing emotions on SNSs, as there exists apprehension about being perceived as socially undesirable, particularly by individuals with whom they lack a close emotional bond (Vermeulen et al., 2018). Moreover, Facebook imposes a norm of positivity, wherein users are expected to maintain a positive disposition, express positive emotions, and refrain from displaying negative emotions (Bazarova, 2012). ...
... With its extraordinary popularity, research has been concerned with what motivates and the effects of social media use (see for review, Taylor & Bazarova, 2018). Previous studies have shown that people's behaviors on social media are guided by their self-presentational and interpersonal concerns Vermeulen et al., 2018). To examine whether these concerns are reflected in others' impressions on social media, we investigated actor-observer asymmetries in the impression of Facebook posters. ...
... Finally, exploring how social norms on different social media platforms play a role in the perceptual gap would be interesting future research. For example, expressing negative emotions on Twitter is perceived as acceptable and appropriate (Vermeulen et al., 2018). Do people demonstrate less asymmetries when there is no positivity norm on the platform? ...
Oftentimes how people evaluate their own behaviors does not correspond with what others perceive, a phenomenon called actor–observer asymmetry. With an online experiment, this study examined whether people exhibit actor–observer asymmetrical perception of their social attractiveness when sharing emotions on Facebook. Actors (sharers) thought they would be perceived as more socially attractive than observers (message readers) reported. The degree of such perceptual gaps varied by the valence of shared emotion (positive vs. negative), but the communication channels (status updates vs. direct messages) through which the emotions were shared did not affect the perceptual asymmetry. Actors’ self-presentation concerns and self-esteem were associated with the degree of asymmetries. The results extend the actor–observer asymmetry research and advance the literature on the social sharing of emotion on social media.
... Yet, as adolescents often share positive content relating to their personal successes on social media (Schreurs & Vandenbosch, 2021a), capitalization processes are also likely to occur online. Initial evidence suggests that sharing positive events on social media can inform the well-being of young people (Bierstetel, 2021;Choi & Toma, 2014;Vermeulen et al., 2018). However, much of the existing time-sensitive research has relied on daily diary methodology, and thus, less is known about the long-term consequences of capitalization on social media. ...
... Furthermore, cross-sectional and experimental research has identified that these positive effects are most likely when other social media users are responsive to young peoples' capitalization attempts (Bierstetel, 2021). Qualitative research has reported similar findings, in that adolescents have discussed how receiving positive feedback on social media enabled them to capitalize on their positive emotions (Vermeulen et al., 2018). Importantly, then, as social media are often designed to stimulate positive feedback (e.g., "Like" buttons but no "Dislike" buttons) (Koutamanis et al., 2015), adolescents tend to respond promptly and positively to content shared by peers (P. ...
... Cross-sectional, experimental, and daily diary studies have previously identified positive relationships between capitalization on social media and subjective well-being (Bierstetel, 2021;Choi & Toma, 2014;Vermeulen et al., 2018). However, less is known about the long-term emotional effects of sharing positive news with others on social media. ...
... The ubiquity of social media apps presents an opportunity for adolescents to intentionally and repetitively harm others, sometimes with complete anonymity, and often without consequence [2,3,4]. Online behaviour varies by social networking site [5]. Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms amongst adolescent users and has the highest percentage of users reporting cyberbullying experiences [6]. ...
... In the second model, when comparing parental behaviour with adolescents' behaviour, PA, PPC, SN and PB 4 Parental attitude. 5 Parental perceived control. 6 Subjective norms. ...
An increase in adolescent social media use has exacerbated cyberbullying globally. Instagram has the highest percentage of adolescent users experiencing cybervictimisation. While past research has delved into self-driven or peer-driven motivations of cyberbullying, theory-driven research characterising external factors is integral to understanding the psyche of cyberbullies, victims, or bystanders. Examining factors moderating cyberbullying in the broader social context of family in addition to peers is vital to mitigate cyberbullying. This paper explores factors related to parent and adolescent behaviours and relationships using the theory of planned behaviour. Two Instagram-specific instruments were designed, developed, and validated. Statistical analysis and comparisons were made between participants from two countries, i.e., India and Singapore. Results showed that perceived parental control, parental behavioural intention, subjective norms, and gender were significant predictors of adolescents' cyber behaviour. While past studies have concluded that theoretical perspectives are integral to studying cyberbullying behaviours, our study gives insight on how determinants of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) predict actual intentions to cyberbully in adolescents. Further, the theoretical perspective and structural equation modelling (SEM) allows us to explore the effects of deeply held attitudes (Singapore: β = .590, p < .01; India: β = .659, p < .01), perceived parental control (Singapore: β = .068, p < .01; India: β = .192, p < .01) and subjective norms (Singapore: β = .745, p < .01; India: β = .295, p < .01) in proximal factors such as parents and their behavioural intentions. While TPB has only been used to study individual behavioural intentions in the past, the statistical analysis gives us the chance to delve into how individual behavioural intentions in family settings may affect adolescents' social media behaviour.
... To simulate naturalistic sharing conditions while also maintaining experimental control, we designed a sharing task inspired by paradigms that involve iterative feedback (e.g., Fareri et al., 2015;Will et al., 2017) and mimic real-world social media sharing environments (e.g., Baek et al., 2017;Sherman et al., 2016Sherman et al., , 2018. We ultimately chose to simulate Instagram for this design because (a) participants can provide many pictures, which maximizes statistical power and allows participants to form impressions of social partners through repeated interactions; (b) pictures shared on Instagram often capture personal life events and evoke positive emotions (De Paola et al., 2020;Vermeulen et al., 2018;Waterloo et al., 2018); and (c) it embodies a naturalistic sharing medium that is highly popular among emerging adults, which was the primary age range of our sample (Perrin & Anderson, 2019). In the sharing task, participants made trialby-trial decisions about whether to share their positive Instagram pictures (and neutral control pictures) with three anonymous peers. ...
... Our findings also contribute to existing literature on motivation for sharing in online social settings. Specifically, we provide further evidence that sharing on social media involves self-related, value-based, and socially motivated decision-making processes (Baek et al., 2017;Ihm & Kim, 2018;Scholz, Jovanova, et al., 2020;Vermeulen et al., 2018) and that social media feedback has rewarding and reinforcing properties (Lindström et al., 2021;Sherman et al., 2016Sherman et al., , 2018. Uniquely, our study presents these novel findings through direct manipulation of social feedback and measurement of real-time behavior, strengthening the evidence for these mechanistic processes and setting the foundation for further research in this domain. ...
Positive social sharing is an interpersonal emotion regulation strategy that enhances positive affect and social belonging, particularly when met with positive social feedback. Despite the ubiquity of positive social sharing both in person and online, what drives this behavior is not well understood. We hypothesized that positive social feedback serves as a reward that reinforces sharing behavior and strengthens social bonds. Participants made trial-by-trial choices about whether to share social media photos with peers who returned positive ("likes") or negative ("dislikes") feedback. Unbeknownst to participants, peer conditions were manipulated to yield varying amounts of positive and negative feedback. Social bonding was subsequently measured using a trust game and subjective closeness ratings. Participants shared more with peers who provided greater rates of positive feedback. This effect generalized to trust decisions and subjective feelings of closeness and varied individually as a function of interpersonal emotion regulation in daily life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
... Individuals who are experiencing emotion regulation difficulties at night might also use social media not only to avoid unpleasant emotions, but also to experience positive ones. Regulating emotions through social media might imply different mechanisms that might be differentially associated with sleep, such as expressing emotions, looking for content congruent with a certain emotional state, or seeking validation and reassurance (Blumberg et al., 2016;Sharma et al., 2020;Vermeulen, Vandebosch & Heirman, 2018). Furthermore, the effect of social media use on sleep might also be different based on whether the individual possesses efficient emotion regulation strategies (Tavernier & Willoughby, 2014). ...
... Therefore, there seem to be other aspects regarding social media, beyond cognitive presleep arousal, that might explain its association with sleep and that remain largely unexplored (e.g., social feedback, support, and acknowledgment through "likes" and "comments" appear to be used to help regulate emotions) (Sharma et al., 2020). Also, the specific type of social media activity and social media website used may be important to understand social media's association with sleep, especially because different social media platforms are used for different purposes and to share different types of emotions (Vermeulen et al., 2018). Hence, future studies should clarify the underlying explanatory mechanisms of the relation between nighttime social media use and poor sleep quality, including the explanatory role of other variables, which were not considered in the present study (e.g., social media websites, screen light). ...
Research shows that nighttime social media is negatively associated with sleep quality and that it might be utilized to cope with aversive psychological states related to cognitive pre-sleep arousal (i.e., transdiagnostic psychopathology variables, referring to maladaptive repetitive thought), namely Fear of Missing Out (FoMO). The use of nighttime social media to cope with other aversive cognitive states (i.e., worry/rumination), their relationship with FoMO, and these variables' association with sleep are not fully understood. This study explored the relationships between nighttime social media, sleep quality, FoMO, cognitive pre-sleep arousal, and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation (i.e., worry/rumination). The present correlational study followed a cross-sectional design. Participants were 525 university students, ranging in age from 18 to 64 (M = 22.39, SD = 5.62). Measures of sleep quality, morningness/eveningness, cognitive pre-sleep arousal, worry, rumination, FoMO, nighttime screen, and social media use were collected online or in pencil-paper format. Multiple linear regression analyses were performed. Nighttime social media and FoMO were associated with rumination, worry (H1) and cognitive pre-sleep arousal. Both FoMO and worry predicted higher levels of cognitive pre-sleep arousal (H2) and nighttime social media use (H3). Nighttime social media use independently predicted poor sleep quality (H4). These results suggest that worry and FoMO may potentially affect sleep quality by increasing cognitive pre-sleep arousal and nighttime social media. A possible explanation for these findings is that nighttime social media might be used as a strategy to cope with aversive cognitive states. These conclusions may contribute to improving sleep intervention in this population.
... Finally, two recent studies [92,93] did not show agreement about the differences in emotional sharing between various SNSs. Generally, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat were mostly used to share positive emotions; conversely, Whatsapp, Twitter, and Messenger were mostly used to share negative emotions. ...
... Further research is needed to overcome these inconsistencies. Finally, no agreement emerged regarding the positive or negative prevalence of emotional content in various online platforms [92]. ...
Purpose of Review
The rapid development of social networking sites (SNSs) has affected adolescents’ well-being with great impact on social experience. In this scoping review, we aimed to map out what is known from the most recent literature about adolescents’ emotional well-being and the role of emotional regulation skills in preventing problematic SNS use. We used the Arksey and O’Malley methodological framework, and we based the study selection procedure on the PRISMA process. Then, we selected 52 English and peer-reviewed papers from PubMed, MEDLINE, PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, Wiley Online Library, and Web of Science.
Recent Findings
We found both positive and negative effects of SNS use on adolescents’ emotions with online self-presentation and social comparison as key mechanisms to explain differences in subjective well-being. The risk of developing problematic use of SNSs is influenced by time spent on SNSs, active or passive use, and adolescents’ social and emotional skills.
Summary
This review suggested the importance of emotional experiences and social support in both in-person and online interactions. Future research is needed to provide the basis for a better forthcoming classification of problematic SNS use.
... 이들은 인터넷이 없는 세상을 전혀 알지 못하며, 미디어에 매개된 커뮤 니케이션은 이들에게 너무나 자연스러운 일상이다 [5]. 무엇보 다 MZ세대는 온라인상에서 자신의 의견이나 느낀 감정을 혼 자 중얼거리는 자기 대화(self-talk)의 형태로 공유하는 데 상당 히 능숙하다 [6]. 관련 연구들은 MZ세대가 정서적 어려움을 겪 을 때마다 온라인상에서 자신의 기분을 혼자 표출하는 경우가 잦음을 보여준다 [6]. ...
... 무엇보 다 MZ세대는 온라인상에서 자신의 의견이나 느낀 감정을 혼 자 중얼거리는 자기 대화(self-talk)의 형태로 공유하는 데 상당 히 능숙하다 [6]. 관련 연구들은 MZ세대가 정서적 어려움을 겪 을 때마다 온라인상에서 자신의 기분을 혼자 표출하는 경우가 잦음을 보여준다 [6]. 자기 대화는 혼자 하는 단순한 중얼거림 이지만, 이는 자기 내면을 이해하는 과정으로서 개인의 심리적 성장과 매우 밀접한 관련성을 갖는다 [7]. ...
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between an individual's daily well-being and the self-talk and pep-talk type. Methods: A total of 378 Koreans between the ages of 18 and 37 participated in an online survey. The participants were presented with four vignettes and then responded to the question, “If you were feeling the same way as presented in the vignette, what type of self-talk and pep-talk would you be likely to have?” Descriptive and frequency analysis was used to examine the participants’ demographic characteristics and their preferred types of self-talk and pep-talk according to mood state. Moreover, hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the relationships among the study variables. Results: The message types of self-talk and pep-talk changed according to the participant’s mood state (i.e., anger, sadness, anxiety, and self-harm). In addition, people with higher levels of daily well-being were more likely to engage in active self-talk to regulate their mood. Conclusion: This study implies that self-talk and pep-talk via mobile media can serve as effective regulation strategies for people’s daily negative moods.
... Interestingly, social norms, social media platform characteristics, and individual preferences have been found to influence social network site choice for sharing a particular type of emotion. Vermeulen et al. [86] reported that Facebook statuses, Snapchat, and Instagram are mostly used for sharing positive emotions, whereas Twitter and Messenger are also used for sharing negative emotions. Choi and Toma [82] found that media selection for the first instance of social sharing among undergraduates was driven by their perceptions of media affordances and by their habitual media use with the target of their disclosure. ...
... Social sharing of negative emotions in social networking sites has been found to often occur via private messages, partially due to impression management concerns with sharing to a larger audience [90]. However, there are also studies that report negative posts outnumbering other types of emotional posts in public channels, supporting previous findings [82,86] that the platform for expression of a certain emotion is chosen situationally and depends on a number of platform characteristics and individual preferences. For example, Hidalgo et al. [91] reported that a large part of emotional blog posts on LiveJournal showed full initiation of social sharing, where the share of negative posts was the largest. ...
Policymakers and researchers worldwide are interested in measuring the subjective well-being (SWB) of populations. In recent years, new approaches to measuring SWB have begun to appear, using digital traces as the main source of information, and show potential to overcome the shortcomings of traditional survey-based methods. In this paper, we propose the formal model for calculation of observable subjective well-being (OSWB) indicator based on posts from a social network, which utilizes demographic information and post-stratification techniques to make the data sample representative by selected characteristics of the general population. We applied the model on the data from Odnoklassniki, one of the largest social networks in Russia, and obtained an OSWB indicator representative of the population of Russia by age and gender. For sentiment analysis, we fine-tuned several language models on RuSentiment and achieved state-of-the-art results. The calculated OSWB indicator demonstrated moderate to strong Pearson’s (r=0.733, p=0.007, n=12) correlation and strong Spearman’s (rs=0.825, p=0.001, n=12) correlation with a traditional survey-based Happiness Index reported by Russia Public Opinion Research Center, confirming the validity of the proposed approach. Additionally, we explored circadian (24 h) and circaseptan (7 day) patterns, and report several interesting findings for the population of Russia. Firstly, daily variations were clearly observed: the morning had the lowest level of happiness, and the late evening had the highest. Secondly, weekly patterns were clearly observed as well, with weekends being happier than weekdays. The lowest level of happiness occurs in the first three weekdays, and starting on Thursday, it rises and peaks during the weekend. Lastly, demographic groups showed different levels of happiness on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, which confirms the importance of post-stratification by age group and gender in OSWB studies based on digital traces.
... Digital ethnography offers unique ethical considerations (Pink et al., 2016). Studies of Reddit extend across gender, romance, video games and drug usage (See: Townsend & Wallace, 2017;Uchinaka et al., 2019;Vermeulen et al., 2018;Wang, 2017). Reddit (2021) does not disclose openly user demographics, other than users must be over 13 to have an account, and the majority are males (57%) aged 18-34 (58%). ...
Z-library, an electronic books (ebooks) website, was shut down in November 2022 for cybercriminal activity. This created a milieu to investigate its educational significance in higher educational institutes. Adopting social representation theory, this article explores 134 comments in r/Z-Library a Reddit subforum populated across social media during the takedown. These users' views are contextualised against opinions from 103 Higher Education (HE) postgraduate students in China, who were engaged in a qualitative study including a survey, focus group and ethnographic observation of a classroom debate. Analysis found an overlap between both groups and suggests that universities need to reconsider digital divides faced by socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Academic poverty, caused by the cost of academic literature and journals, was found to drive students and social media users towards piracy. The article concludes by recommending that universities must consider how to reduce piracy, as institutional libraries move into post-digital futures. These recommendations highlight, then, that if learners must resort to 'academic cybercrime' a rethink is needed about how universities enable a culture of lifelong learning.
... Employee well-being remains an essential agenda for how organizations can achieve competitive advantage (Cartwright & Holmes, 2006;Harju et al., 2021;Hill et al., 2024). Previous studies have indicated that use digital technologies such as social media use may affect well-being in individuals (Ostic et al., 2021) and other behavioural consequences such as job performance, commitment and employee advocacy (Hwang & Hyun, 2012;Jaiswal et al., 2022;Vermeulen et al., 2018). Prior researchers have mostly attentive only on how social media use effects subjective and psychological well-being especially in context to adolescents (e.g., Chen, 2023;Alshakhsi et al., 2023;Kaur et al., 2021;Ostic et al., 2021). ...
... Misogynist incel-perpetrated violence has increased in recent years due to the rapid growth of the internet, which hosts forums for misogynist incels to communicate (O'Malley, Holt, and Holt 2020). While online forums, such as Reddit, have previously been identified as beneficial for some (Utz and Breuer 2017;Vermeulen, Vandebosch, and Heirman 2018), these social benefits (Wendorf and Yang 2015) are often undermined by promotion of violence against women, which is not uncommon in incel forums (DiBranco 2018;Helm et al. 2022;Pelzer et al. 2021). Attempts to moderate these subreddits may be unsuccessful, as subreddit bans only lead to a small portion of active users leaving entirely (Thomas et al. 2021). ...
... Social media are places where users express negative emotions (e.g. Lu and Hong, 2022;Vermeulen et al., 2018). As emotions are contagious, this negativity could diffuse to other users (Coviello et al., 2014). ...
The anti-vaccination movement has successfully spread its views on social media. This study examined how community building emerges in the messages of Dutch anti-vaccination Telegram groups. Particularly, we investigated the extent to which these groups provide a platform for sharing information, perpetuating a shared identity, and promoting action. As negative emotions are considered a prime driver of collective action, we examined to what extent the messages had a negative valence. We used a mixed-method approach through a quantitative content analysis of 4654 text messages from five Telegram groups, while also examining the nature of the content through a qualitative analysis. The results suggest that most messages contained a form of shared identity (ingroup favoritism and outgroup hostility) or (mis)information, and, to a lesser extent, encouragements for (online) action. Moreover, most content had a negative valence. These findings illustrate how online groups might be sources of (mis)information, polarization, and intergroup hostility.
... Self-disclosure is a key mechanism for receiving emotional and informational support in online communities [11,17], but the posting of content with emotions such as anger or frustration can negatively impact community members who view such content. Self-disclosure of negative emotions, or venting, occurs online in various platforms such as Reddit [3], Instagram [2], and Twitter [16]. However, few of those spaces appear to have the high levels of responsive interaction and support seen in Discord channels, a platform that has seen significant growth in recent years particularly among adolescents and young adults who have traditionally been a target of study for online self-disclosure research. ...
Vent channels on Discord, which are chat channels developed for people to express frustrations, can become an informal type of peer support system. This paper is a qualitative study of experiences with vent channels on Discord, examining the experiences of 13 participants through semi-structured interviews. We find that participants are able to meet their needs for social support via vent channels by receiving commiseration, advice, and validation from the responses of others. At the same time, vent channels can lead to frustration when participants have conflicting expectations for their interactions. We suggest ways that Discord or Discord server moderators can provide enhanced structure, clarity, and transparency in order to enable participants to have better experiences in vent channels.
... In 2019, ref. [2] conducted research on the rectification of neuroscience myths through Facebook, reporting that readers were more likely to positively evaluate articles that were consistent with their preexisting beliefs. In contrast, ref. [20] found that posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat were primarily used to share positive emotions, whereas Twitter and Messenger were primarily used to share negative emotions. ...
This research investigates the impact of applying neuromarketing techniques to three practical examples of higher education (HE) branding: an official college website page, an official college Facebook page, and recorded online video lectures used for teaching at HE institutions. The study was conducted in three different HE institutions with a representative sample of 720 participants, with n = 529 used for testing the CARE college website, n = 59 for testing the HAZEF Facebook page, and n = 132 for testing the emotional response of students studying online. To assess the participants’ emotional responses, this study utilized automated facial coding through a webcam (15 Hz) and considered mood intensities. Additionally, a sentiment analysis was employed to verify the survey results and determine any discrepancies in the cognitive response. By analyzing gaze activity, movement patterns, and emotional responses, valuable insights were gained into students’ behaviors and preferences. This study recommends incorporating neuromarketing research into HE branding and online teaching to enhance students’ learning experiences. Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of human expectations and behaviors in response to online teaching and provides valuable insights for HE institutions in Europe.
... This section specifically focuses on sentiment analysis for mental health prediction using social media. We discuss methods and techniques in relevant studies, highlighting the growing importance of social media for sharing personal experiences and emotions (Asher BlackDeer et al. 2023;Christensen 2018;Schneider and Carpenter 2020;Vermeulen, Vandebosch, and Heirman 2018). Early studies on depression prediction using Twitter data utilised machine learning to identify users with depression (De Choudhury et al. 2013). ...
... When good things happen, people often turn to others to share their positive news-a process known as capitalization (Gable & Reis, 2010). Indeed, with the proliferation of social media, opportunities to share this kind of information are greater than ever before (e.g., Barasch, 2020;Goh et al., 2019;Vermeulen et al., 2018). This tendency to share positive information is so foundational that it has been labeled as one of the most important rules for friendship for promoting relationship quality and satisfaction (Argyle & Henderson, 1984;Gable et al., 2006). ...
Existing wisdom holds that secrecy is burdensome and fatiguing. However, past research has conflated secrecy with the kinds of adverse events that are often kept secret. As a result, it is unclear whether secrecy is inherently depleting, or whether these consequences vary based on the underlying meaning of the secret. We resolve this confound by examining the consequences of positive secrets. In contrast to the prior research, five experiments (N = 2,800) find that positive secrets increase feelings of energy, relative to (a) content-matched positive non-secrets, (b) other pieces of unknown positive information, and (c) other kinds of secrets. Importantly, these energizing effects of positive secrets were independent of positive affect. We further found that positive secrets are energizing because, compared to other kinds of secrets, people keep them for more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated reasons. That is, these secrets are more freely chosen, more consistent with personal values, and more motivated by internal desires (than by external pressures). Using both measures and manipulations of these motivations, we found that a motivational mechanism helps explain the energizing effect of positive secrets. The present results offer new insights into secrecy, how people respond to positive life events, and the subjective experiences of vitality and energy.
... Previous studies suggest that there is a positivity bias in social media posts [9] and users consider expression of positive emotions (i.e., joy and pride) more appropriate than negative emotions (i.e., anger, sadness, and worry; 12). Individuals are more likely to share positive than negative events [10] and prefer to hide negative content in public nondirected communication (posts that a group of people can see [e.g., followers]; 14,15), compared to directed communication (e.g., interacting via private message with a specific person).Vermeulen et al. [11] found that adolescents show distinctive patterns of emotion sharing on different social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat for positive emotions, and Twitter for negative emotions). Vermeulen et al. [12] proposed that the decision to share emotions online or offline (i.e., face-to-face, texting, and calling) is influenced by the valence, type, and intensity of the emotion, in addition to the affordances of the mode, social norms, and impression management concerns. ...
Background: Sympathy-seeking negative online self-disclosure, or "sadfishing, " has proliferated in social media. This study investigates sadfishing by developing and validating a brief self-report questionnaire of the construct and exploring potential psychological correlates.
Methods: A total of 345 Iranian adolescent social media users (M age = 16.29, SD age = 1.52) participated in the study. Participants completed the newly constructed Social Media Sadfishing Questionnaire, in addition to measures of anxiety, depression, attention seeking, perceived social support, and social media use integration.
Results: Factor analyses revealed a unidimensional structure of the 5-item Social Media Sadfishing Questionnaire. The questionnaire yielded sound construct validity and internal consistency. Anxiety, depression, and attention seeking were positively associated with sadfishing, while perceived social support from family and friends was negatively associated with sadfishing. Negative online reactions to sadfishing were rare. Boys reported higher sadfishing tendencies than girls at age 12; however, sadfishing in boys declined at a higher rate than in girls with age.
Conclusions: The findings suggest that negative affect and attention seeking, combined with feelings of low social support, can be associated with adolescent sadfishing on social media. The quantitative results shed new light on the contribution of psychosocial factors to sadfishing.
... The jokes shared by one person in one country are still funny to someone in a different country based not on their location but on their life experiences. (Escher, 2017) From academia, studies such as those by Vermeulen et al. (2018) point out that certain social media such as Instagram or the 9Gag platform itself are used by young people to share positive emotions which reinforces that the content shared by the audiences of these spaces possess certain qualities of tone and subject matter focused on humor and easy smiles that are similar (Gillis & Pozin, 2023). In a similar way, Gilbert's (2021) work points out how humor serves the younger generations as a way of reconciliation with the difficult reality they have had to live with. ...
This article addresses the place that the webcomic occupies as valuable content within the repertoire of consumable options in digital social media platforms. For the new digital generations, these new media spaces of light entertainment are spaces of encounter and interaction. Taking as a case study the Instagram profile of 9Gag, this article analyzes the level of engagement of 9Gag audiences with the webcomics published in that profile during the year 2022. The hypothesis defended in this text is to consider that these new spaces of consumption and interaction between users and content are especially relevant when considering the reach that the webcomic has as a format or content of interest for younger audiences. The results obtained after the data analysis show, even considering its possible exploratory nature of the study, that the webcomic is an attractive content for centennial audiences, although its formal and discursive concreteness remains far from the linguistic innovations that the digital comic promoted in its first manifestations.
... Although each social media platform is designed with its own features, users engage with social media differently depending on the target audience of that platform, not necessarily on the social media's design and technology (Boczkowski et al., 2018). Adolescents knowingly make public and private decisions about what to share in the context of their emotions (Vermeulen et al., 2018). However, even if users turn to social media for momentary entertainment, users may unintentionally start reading political content posted there by others (Villi et al., 2022). ...
When it comes to fake news, no medium circulates and reaches more youth than social media. Social media can provide an opportunity for students to create and post with an authentic audience; however, social media can also perpetuate the danger of fake news. Youth across the globe emotionally engage with content several hours a day and can become vulnerable to the clickbait style of news. Therefore, although research has studied how critical literacy instruction supports informed reading, literacy instruction must also address students’ emotional regulation needs. This research-to-practice article describes the dangers of fake news on youth interactions and provides practical emotional regulation tips for teachers. Emotional regulation strategies in this paper specifically concentrate on implementing affect labeling and mindful breathing in classrooms in order to support informed literacy.
... 3,15 ). Further, research investigates the variation in the likelihood of socially sharing emotions on different platforms [16][17][18] . These studies explore expression frequency differences at a given point in time, rather than analyzing the temporal shifts. ...
Social networks can provide insights into the emotions expressed by a society. However, the dynamic nature of emotions presents a significant challenge for policymakers, politicians, and communication professionals who seek to understand and respond to changes in emotions over time. To address this challenge, this paper investigates the frequency, duration, and transition of 24 distinct emotions over a 2-year period, analyzing more than 5 million tweets. The study shows that emotions with lower valence but higher dominance and/or arousal are more prevalent in online social networks. Emotions with higher valence and arousal tend to last longer, while dominant emotions tend to have shorter durations. Emotions occupying the conversations predominantly inhibit others with similar valence and dominance, and higher arousal. Over a month, emotions with similar valences tend to prevail in online social network conversations.
... They perceive Snapchat as a platform for less curated and more casual photo sharing compared to other social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram. [6,7,8]. Unsurprisingly, among college students, one of the main motivations to use Snapchat is for entertainment purposes, along with various other motivations [9]. ...
Snapchat offers a unique function, the Snapchat Streak, which is a gamified function within the app that motivates users to participate in daily interactions. This feature of the application can aid users in building a friendship with their peers. Given the requirement of interacting on the platform every 24 hours, our exploratory study aims to investigate how Snapchat streaks are associated with Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), problematic smartphone use and social media self-control. We conducted a study among a final sample of 2483 early adolescents (Mage = 13.46 years old; SD = 0.894) in the Dutch-speaking community of Belgium. The results indicate that the girls were more likely than boys to engage in a Snapchat streak and were more likely to engage in streaks for a longer period of time. Problematic smartphone use was associated with the engagement in Snapchat streaks. Lastly, FOMO, problematic smartphone use, and social media self-control were correlated with the number of people and the number of days adolescents maintained Snapchat streaks with, albeit it being a weak relationship. Implications of the findings for understanding adolescent Snapchat use are provided.
... Rozdiel pri chlapcoch je teda viac ako 30 kg, pri dievčatách je o čosi nižší, okolo 20 kg . Taktiež sa objavujú výrazné zmeny v kognitívnej alebo emocionálnej sfére (Vermeulen et al., 2018). ...
The period in which we live is characterised by tremendous dynamism. Everything is changing at a rapid pace, not least the content and form of education. Both the Slovak and Czech education systems have changed with the adoption of new school laws. We are feeling strong pressure from European structures to increase the proportion of university-educated people up to the level of 40%. Employers' expectations in relation to standards of educational results and professional competences are changing. We are facing the challenge of curricular transformation as the volume of 'core' knowledge continues to grow and we are trying to weave it into the content of education. We are facing the consequences of the decentralisation of education, but this does not prevent us from centralising the examination of knowledge in primary and secondary schools. There are critical voices saying that the current education system will soon fail because it is failing at its core, which is preparation for the future profession. These are just some of the current problems of education and its dynamics. Among the bulging issues that are opening up debate and strongly polarising the public are technological and electronic innovations. The use of the Internet, the flipping of social relationships into online identities, and the mass use of "smart" devices have all entered our lives significantly in the last 25 years. What was considered at the end of the 20th century to be a dependency on the Internet and technology is now the gold standard for interactions, but also for ways of self-presentation (e.g. a smartphone with a permanent Internet connection, whose hardware rivals gaming computers and high-end cameras). There is simply an intergenerational shift in how we perceive the necessity of using technology and the extent to which we use it in everyday life. People from the "Baby Boomers", "Husak's Children" and probably even "Millennials" can easily imagine life without technology and the Internet because they have had this experience. But Generation Y and α have not experienced such a life. The Internet and technology have been with them since birth. Chances are that at two years old, they knew the functions of a smartphone better than their parents. For many of them, the smartphone was a "nanny". And perhaps right now they use it for leisure, to communicate with friends and girlfriends, to look up information or pay for goods. Inevitably, there are two camps of people. In one are the opponents of mass use of technology and the Internet, including those seeking a technology detox and those who have unplugged. In the other are proponents of their use, including technology producers, app makers and distributors. Both sides have strong arguments that they use to support their position. The "against" side talks about the change in the neurophysiological qualities of the brain that causes us to be stupid. Some talk about "debilitation." There is a decline in our key abilities, such as the ability to communicate correctly, inhibit behavior, or expand the range of short-term memory. The 'pro' side talks about inevitable progress, the availability of information, networking, faster learning or the possibility of linking human consciousness with technology. As it happens, the truth will be somewhere in the middle. And some research carried out in the Czech Republic has indeed shown that as long as we use technology and the Internet in a reasonable way, it does not have to have negative consequences for us and we can use it for our development. In relation to the massiveness of the aforementioned phenomenon, we have no choice but to accept that the Internet and technology are an integral part of our lives, for current and future adolescents. If we look at the recent period, roughly defined as 03/2020 to 03/2022, associated with the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on education, regardless of our attitude towards technology and the Internet, we must admit that they have been a lifesaver for us if we wanted to protect health and, at the same time, continue to educate children and adolescents. Teachers were confronted with new challenges from one day to the next, which consisted in changing the form of education and were associated with a number of technical and competence problems. Online education had been in operation for almost two years and computers, tablets, telephones, various communication applications were the common means of conveying information. Last but not least, educational videos gained popularity. Many older ones have been dusted off and a huge number of new ones have been created to make it easier for children and adolescents to learn educational content. They have their drawbacks, such as the lack of social interaction and the opportunity to ask questions. But they also have their upsides, such as greater clarity, the ability to proceed at one's own pace or to retrace previous steps. They appear to be a suitable complementary method that could find a firm place in both institutionalised and non-institutionalised education. We have addressed this content in our publication. We were interested in how adolescents were educated during the Covid-19 pandemic, how they used educational videos, whether their use was related to changes in the form of education, and how they perceived them.
... That incels were recruited from incel-adjacent forums for this study strengthens this possibility. Multiple studies have indicated that online venting is not only common, but beneficial as well (Utz & Breuer, 2017;Vermeulen et al., 2018). There may even be social benefits; Wendorf and Yang (2015) found that online venting mediated the relationship between perceived stress and relationship maintenance, suggesting that online disclosure of personal problems may motivate individuals to invest more in their online friendships. ...
Unlabelled:
Incels-a ragtag collection of young males who have rallied around their shared experience of romantic rejection-have slowly emerged as an online group of interest to researchers, no doubt as a result of several high-profile attacks. Much of this work has centered around incels' dating experiences, sexual attitudes, and online forums. However, it is possible that their moniker, short for involuntary celibate, has resulted in an overemphasis on their sexual exclusion and frustration. Recent work has identified social isolation as a key aspect of inceldom, which may help explain why incels have responded negatively to romantic rejection. The present study thus sought to examine the role of social support and loneliness in experiences of rejection in a sample of incel (n = 67) and non-incel (n = 103) men. Results indicated that incels experience more feelings of loneliness and less social supports than non-incel men. Both of these variables were associated with multiple mental and relational health issues that incels also scored more highly on. Further, incels reported using more solitary and problematic coping mechanisms. These results suggest that incels may be missing a key buffer in sheltering them from the adverse effects of romantic rejection. It also extends previous findings highlighting the importance of attachment styles in differentiating incels from non-incels, which may perpetuate feelings of isolation. Implications for how this may relate to incel discourse and clinical interventions are discussed.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04275-z.
... After all, smiling might be viewed as a way to spread optimism on social media and even as a way to speed up the hiring process on those sites [28]. Whether someone chooses to smile with their teeth visible or not, there are a variety of ways to do so on social media, as has been noted in earlier study results [29,30]. For instance, extracting tweets showed that certain dentofacial traits might be crucial in changing smiling behavior to prevent bullying [31]. ...
Introduction:
The mouth and teeth are vital in facial aesthetics and the face as a whole is the most critical individual component determining one's physical look. As dentists, we need to be aware that this might significantly alter the care given to a patient since the patient's and the dentist's ideas of beauty may be quite different. This study sought to ascertain how the general public, general dental specialists, and orthodontics all rated the attractiveness of patients who had received orthodontic treatment using a visual scale, as well as how the facial reference could be used to gauge the improvement in smiles.
Methodology:
The attractiveness of 80 continuously treated patients was assessed by comparing their pre- and post-treatment posed grin images. The attractiveness of participants' smiles was evaluated using the Visual Simple Scale, which measures affect, and the Graph of Facial Stylish Reference, which measures objectively. "Making a Jazzy Face Chart" - The analysts were able to fairly evaluate changes in elements such as the symmetry of the smile twist, the position of the gingival peak of the front teeth relative to each other, the height of the incisal edges of the front teeth, the width of the connector band of the front six teeth, and the general tip of the front teeth by referring to photographs taken during treatment. We put the Visual Basic Scale to the test by having five male orthodontists, five male general dental specialists, and five male laypeople rate how much of an improvement they noticed between the before and after photos of a patient's smile.
Results:
According to the findings of the first section of the research, orthodontic treatment generally leads to an increase in all indicators. Some instances, however, demonstrated worsening in characteristics such as grin arc consonance, gingival zenith location relative to each other, and incisal edge height. The second half of this research revealed that the opinions of orthodontic specialists, general dentists, and the general public varied with regard to the beauty of a smile.
Conclusion:
Based on this research, we can say the following: Orthodontic treatment led to improvements in many of the variables that contribute to smile attractiveness, factors include the interproximal width of contact area, the height of the incisal margins of the front teeth, and the location of the gingival zenith in relation to one another, to name a few. The results of this research support the idea that the aesthetics of the smile should be assessed at the last stages of orthodontic treatment when fine adjustments are being made.
... Through online communication, they cultivate interests, identify with or differentiate themselves from others and increase their autonomy (Borca et al., 2015). They also increase their sense of belonging by sharing their feelings with their peers (Vermeulen et al., 2018). Thus, many adolescents attain life satisfaction and meet psychological needs, such as social self-esteem, through online communication via social media (Ang et al., 2015;Valkenburg et al., 2017). ...
Aim
The aim of the study is to conduct a concept analysis of adolescents' emotional well‐being resulting from healthy social media use.
Background
Adolescents are the group that uses mobile social media the most. They connect to others and achieve life satisfaction via social media. Here, we consider both the positive and negative aspects of social media use and recognize the need for clear guidance on proper social media use among adolescents.
Design
This study utilized an eight‐step method of concept analysis.
Data sources
A systematic literature search of PubMed, CINAHL and PsycInfo was conducted, and 10 articles were selected.
Review methods
We defined attributes, model cases, antecedents, consequences and referents.
Results
The attributes of adolescent emotional well‐being on social media are (a) relationships with others, (b) internet‐based communication and (c) being happy and maintaining emotional health. Adolescents use social media to feel safe, seek information and connect to others. Adolescents reported having better relationships and positive affect as a result of social media use.
Conclusion
This concept analysis will help health‐care providers understand how adolescent emotional well‐being is attained through social media. Additionally, this study will provide the basis of behavioural theories and future interventions that guide adolescent use of social media.
... Generally, the overall positive content shared in social media outnumbers the negative content. This is because people usually show their positive, friendly side over social media and tend to talk less about their struggles (Vermeulen et al., 2018). To mitigate this problem, previous studies depended on self-labeled data for collating large and balanced datasets on different mental disorders (Kim et al., 2020;Low et al., 2020). ...
Mental health research through data-driven methods has been hindered by a lack of standard typology and scarcity of adequate data. In this study, we leverage the clinical articulation of depression to build a typology for social media texts for detecting the severity of depression. It emulates the standard clinical assessment procedure Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) to encompass subtle indications of depressive disorders from tweets. Along with the typology, we present a new dataset of 40191 tweets labeled by expert annotators. Each tweet is labeled as 'non-depressed' or 'depressed'. Moreover, three severity levels are considered for 'depressed' tweets: (1) mild, (2) moderate, and (3) severe. An associated confidence score is provided with each label to validate the quality of annotation. We examine the quality of the dataset via representing summary statistics while setting strong baseline results using attention-based models like BERT and DistilBERT. Finally, we extensively address the limitations of the study to provide directions for further research.
... Generally, the overall positive content shared in social media outnumbers the negative content. This is because people usually show their positive, friendly side over social media and tend to talk less about their struggles (Vermeulen et al., 2018). To mitigate this problem, previous studies depended on self-labeled data for collating large and balanced datasets on different mental disorders (Kim et al., 2020;Low et al., 2020). ...
Mental health research through data-driven methods has been hindered by a lack of standard typology and scarcity of adequate data. In this study, we leverage the clinical articulation of depression to build a typology for social media texts for detecting the severity of depression. It emulates the standard clinical assessment procedure Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) to encompass subtle indications of depressive disorders from tweets. Along with the typology, we present a new dataset of 40191 tweets labeled by expert annotators. Each tweet is labeled as ‘non-depressed’ or ‘depressed’. Moreover, three severity levels are considered for ‘depressed’ tweets: (1) mild, (2) moderate, and (3) severe. An associated confidence score is provided with each label to validate the quality of annotation. We examine the quality of the dataset via representing summary statistics while setting strong baseline results using attention-based models like BERT and DistilBERT. Finally, we extensively address the limitations of the study to provide directions for further research.
... Social networks have been widely used for many purposes from developing and keeping social relationships to more formally-oriented purposes (Vermeulen, Vandebosch, & Heirman, 2018). Indeed, social networks have become a new important element in businesses' marketing mix and on the establishment of a relationship with consumers. ...
The research sought to verify how different types of videos influence WhatsApp users. The descriptive and quantitative study had a sample (n = 208) non-probabilistic and by accessibility. Data were collected by online questionnaires. Structural Equation Modeling and ANOVA were used. The results show that the preference for video content and entertainment causes behavioral changes. Furthermore, video content influences sharing intention and attitude towards the ad. The article presents unprecedented empirical evidence between WhatsApp and the Theory of Uses and Gratification (U&G). Keywords: Sharing videos. WhatsApp. Attitude towards ads. Gender. Social networks.
... I did investigate differences for different content characteristics (i.e., positive valence and semantic affinity), but I did not differentiate between constituent media such as social media, calls, and news websites. The large body of literature in communication science which studies the uses of one social media site compared to another (e.g., Tandoc et al., 2019;Vermeulen et al., 2018) already shows that such an approach can similarly mask significant differences between different usage patterns. Again such differences for coping with stress using certain constituent media should be studied by future research. ...
Being a parent of young children is associated with both joy and stress. High parental stress was shown to be associated with decreased parental wellbeing and negative child outcomes. Thus, it is important that parents successfully cope with stress. Research has shown that becoming a parent often results in constraints on time allocation and a perceived state of isolation, making it harder to cope with stress. Smartphones might be a useful tool for parental stress management. For most parents, smartphones are always and easily accessible. Moreover, smartphones can provide many resources such as social support and information and can be used for short periods. Accordingly, first studies show that parents often use their smartphones to cope with stress. However, parental smartphone use has been widely problematized in academic and public discussions because smartphones are said to distract parents from interacting with their children. Research on how parents use smartphones to their benefit is still limited. Moreover, we do not know yet whether and under what circumstances coping using smartphones effectively reduces parental stress. To fill this knowledge gap, I examined in my dissertation how mothers of young children use their smartphones for coping with stress and under what circumstances coping using smartphones is effective. As mothers are still the primary caregivers, my dissertation mainly focuses on mothers. In a first theoretical step, I conducted a systematic scoping review summarizing and integrating the previous literature on media use for coping. Many studies assessed how media are used for coping. However, the literature had not clearly identified where media have their place in stress management models. In the scoping review, I suggested placing media in the transactional model of stress and coping by differentiating between coping strategies, such as social support or distraction and coping tools, such as talking to a friend or using a smartphone. When confronted with a stressful encounter, individuals choose a combination of coping tools and coping strategies to cope with stress. The fit of this combination with the situational circumstances determines whether the coping efforts are successful. Based on this conceptualization, I conducted a qualitative focus groups study and a quantitative experience sampling study (ESS). In the focus group study, building on a synthesis of the literature on digital media use for parenting and smartphone use while parenting, I interviewed parents in a medium-sized city and a parent-child health retreat clinic about how they use their smartphones for stress management. In the ESS, I additionally drew on theoretical conceptualizations from mobile communication and digital wellbeing research. Over 200 mothers filled in four questionnaires a day for one week and answered questions about a stressful situation that had happened in the last two hours. Both studies showed that when mothers are in stressful situations with their children, they mainly use their phones to distract themselves from the stressful encounter and to find information and support. In the focus groups study, parents reported many instances in which they successfully used their phones for stress coping. In the ESS, mothers, however, experienced a smaller stress decrease in stressful situations in which they used their phone than in situations involving no phone use. Using positive phone content, though, was related to increased coping effectiveness. My dissertation also demonstrated that social norms around maternal smartphone use play an important role when mothers use their phones for coping with stress. To explore this, I suggested a social constructivist viewpoint on media use and media effects. This viewpoint posits that the perception of and feelings around ones own media use are just as important for media effects as characteristics of objectively measurable media use, such as usage time. Further, I argue that these media use perceptions are influenced by what others say about media use and are, thus, socially constructed. Confirming the value of this viewpoint, I show in the ESS that mothers who perceived stronger injunctive norms against parental phone use experienced increased guilt when they used their phone for stress coping. Feelings of guilt around phone use in turn were related to a diminished coping effectiveness. Overall, my dissertation shows that by using positive content, mothers can use their smartphones to their benefit when they are confronted with stressful situations. Negative social norms against parental smartphone use can, by inducing guilt, be associated with diminished coping effectiveness when mothers use their phone to cope with stress. Therefore, academic and public discussions around smartphone use should consider the benefits of smartphone use for parents so that a more nuanced debate does not lead to social pressure and feelings of guilt among parents.
Objective
This study investigated longitudinal relationships between social media usage and binge eating (BE) in early adolescence and explored potential moderating effects of sex and BMI.
Methods
Data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, including 1940 participants aged 11 to 12 years at Wave 1, were analyzed over three annual waves. Social media addiction (SMA) scores and time spent on social media were calculated from self‐report questionnaires. BE symptoms were evaluated using the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (KSADS‐5) through self‐reports and parent reports. Modified Poisson regression was used to estimate associations, adjusting for demographic and behavioral covariates.
Results
SMA symptoms, but not time on social media, were cross‐sectionally and prospectively associated with BE. Prospective associations were stronger in male adolescents and differed by baseline body weight. The consistently high SMA group showed the strongest association with follow‐up BE compared with the consistently low SMA group, whereas decreased and increased SMA groups showed similarly positive associations.
Conclusions
SMA scores predict BE in early adolescence, with differentiation in the relationship by sex and weight status. Further observational and interventional research could illuminate underlying mechanisms and test the value of targeting social media‐addictive behaviors to mitigate the risk of disordered eating.
Objetivo: Revisar a literatura sobre detecção de depressão em textos, focando em técnicas de aprendizado de máquina e processamento de linguagem natural. Método: Análise de estudos que utilizam técnicas computacionais avançadas e dicionários de palavras indicativas de depressão, considerando a integração de métodos de aprendizado de máquina, processamento de linguagem natural, e recursos de saúde mental. Resultados: A maioria dos trabalhos utiliza técnicas computacionais avançadas e dicionários específicos, mas há pouca integração da linguística e saúde mental nos modelos. Observou-se uma lacuna na incorporação do contexto cultural e regional da língua escrita. Conclusão: Destaca-se a necessidade de incluir a linguística para considerar o contexto cultural e regional e aumentar o uso de recursos de saúde mental na identificação da depressão em textos, melhorando a precisão e eficácia das ferramentas de detecção.
Background
Many young people (YP) struggle with their mental health and look online for help. To capitalise on their digital presence, we need to better understand how and where they seek information online and what they think of what they find.
Method
We recruited 24 YP (aged 13–18 years). Online interviews were co‐conducted by research team members and trained young researchers. We presented a persona with depression symptoms and asked about potential sources of information/support they might seek. They were also asked to think aloud while searching online and reviewing mental health resources (NHS, Young Minds). We used reflexive thematic analysis.
Results
Analysis generated four themes: (1) the online help‐seeking process, showcasing where YP look for information and why; (2) the mismatch between the information YP expected to find and the reality; (3) the strategies YP employed to determine a source's trust and credibility and (4) individual differences that can influence help‐seeking.
Conclusion
Participants initiated their online search by Googling symptoms. They trusted NHS websites for basic medical information, while charities provided detailed content. Despite scepticism about content, social media offered validation. Online resources should prioritise visual appeal, user‐friendliness, age‐appropriate and personalised content and peer insights. Codesign is imperative to ensure high‐quality, impactful research.
Background
Youth experiencing homelessness face substance use problems disproportionately compared to other youth. A study found that 69% of youth experiencing homelessness meet the criteria for dependence on at least 1 substance, compared to 1.8% for all US adolescents. In addition, they experience major structural and social inequalities, which further undermine their ability to receive the care they need.
Objective
The goal of this study was to develop a machine learning–based framework that uses the social media content (posts and interactions) of youth experiencing homelessness to predict their substance use behaviors (ie, the probability of using marijuana). With this framework, social workers and care providers can identify and reach out to youth experiencing homelessness who are at a higher risk of substance use.
Methods
We recruited 133 young people experiencing homelessness at a nonprofit organization located in a city in the western United States. After obtaining their consent, we collected the participants’ social media conversations for the past year before they were recruited, and we asked the participants to complete a survey on their demographic information, health conditions, sexual behaviors, and substance use behaviors. Building on the social sharing of emotions theory and social support theory, we identified important features that can potentially predict substance use. Then, we used natural language processing techniques to extract such features from social media conversations and reactions and built a series of machine learning models to predict participants’ marijuana use.
Results
We evaluated our models based on their predictive performance as well as their conformity with measures of fairness. Without predictive features from survey information, which may introduce sex and racial biases, our machine learning models can reach an area under the curve of 0.72 and an accuracy of 0.81 using only social media data when predicting marijuana use. We also evaluated the false-positive rate for each sex and age segment.
Conclusions
We showed that textual interactions among youth experiencing homelessness and their friends on social media can serve as a powerful resource to predict their substance use. The framework we developed allows care providers to allocate resources efficiently to youth experiencing homelessness in the greatest need while costing minimal overhead. It can be extended to analyze and predict other health-related behaviors and conditions observed in this vulnerable community.
Detecting signs of rumination (specifically negative repetitive thinking) in social media data could be beneficial to predicting mental health, as rumination is associated with mental health problems. The objective of this study is to evaluate message similarity as a proxy measure of repetitive thinking (a core component of rumination), using data from Vent — a social media platform dedicated to emotion sharing. Our analyses suggest that automatic assessment of message similarity aligns with human judgements. Furthermore, message similarity is positively associated with signs of suicidal ideation/non-suicidal self-injury, and this association is stronger in users who post predominantly negative content, in line with observations from the literature. This effect has a relatively small magnitude and may be less visible in machine learning models with a large number of predictors. Our data suggests that message similarity may be a useful way of capturing repetitive content, which can potentially be used as a stepping stone to automatic rumination detection in social media data.
Purpose
Motivating users to self-disclose online is significant to the long-term development of social media. Therefore, research on emotional disclosure, a significant form of self-disclosure, is required. By developing a stimulus-organism-response model, this study aims to investigate the mechanisms by which the social media environment affects users' online emotional disclosure.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes two dimensions of social media environments, the online interpersonal environment (tie strength and network size) and the online information environment (self-reference). They are hypothesized to stimulate users' internal psychological needs (image management and emotional expression) which in turn will influence their emotional disclosure intentions. Using data from 489 users of WeChat Moments, the authors conduct partial least squares analysis to validate the research model.
Findings
The findings show that users' intrinsic psychological needs are stimulated by social media environments, but network size is not correlated with the need for emotional expression. The user's need for emotional expression promotes both positive and negative emotional disclosure intentions. The need for image management has a positive impact on positive emotion disclosure intentions but has a negative impact on negative emotion disclosure intentions.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the understanding of online emotional disclosure. It can also help social media managers create efficient plans to encourage users to create content.
Peer review
The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-04-2022-0245 .
This study explores how the expression of feelings and the use of personal pronouns on Twitter are associated with user engagement. Unlike most previous studies which focused on the types of emotions that generate user engagement, it uses the volume-control model, which also considers the social dimension of power. Looking at the usage of pronouns, it examines the balance achieved between popular messages that target larger groups and personalized messages that target smaller groups and individuals. The findings show that there is a significant difference between the motivation to share (retweet) and to reply to a message. Users on Twitter tend to retweet messages with popular characteristics, addressing larger groups with positive feelings. On the other hand, replies were associated with more personalized messages and a greater use of negative feelings. Users with more followers and friends presented a balance between popularization and personalization techniques, as their tweets were associated with higher customization of the messages to specific groups yet avoided negative feelings.
Purpose
The goal of this study is to explore how content creators engage in critical data literacies on TikTok, a social media site that encourages the creation and dissemination of user-created, short-form videos. Critical data literacies encompass the ability to reason with, critique, control, and repurpose data for creative uses. Existing work on critical data literacies on social media has focused on understanding of personal data, critique of data use, and strategies to protect privacy. This work focuses on how TikTok content creators repurpose data to construct their own narratives.
Design/methodology/approach
Through hashtag search, the authors created a corpus of 410 TikTok videos focused on discussing environmental and climate action, and qualitatively coded the videos for data literacies practices and video features (audio, footage, background images) that may support these practices.
Findings
Content creators engaged in multiple practices to attach meanings to data and situate environmental and climate action discourse in lived experiences. While there were instances of no data practices, we found cases where creators compiled different data sources, situated data in personal and local contexts, and positioned their experiences as data points to supplement or counter other statistics. Creators further leveraged the platform’s technical features, particularly the ability to add original audio and background images, to add narratives to the collective discourse.
Originality/value
This study presents a unique focus on examining critical data literacies on social media. Findings highlight how content creators repurpose data and integrate personal experiences. They illustrate platform features to support data practices and inform the design of learning environments.
Purpose
The negative effects of job stress and burnout on construction professionals (CPs) at the construction site have been widely concern in the construction industry. The purpose of this study is committed to explore the impact of job stress on CPs on the construction site, especially in the context of the widespread use of social media to express their emotions.
Design/methodology/approach
This study developed a job-related stress-burnout-health conditions-turnover intention (S-B-HT) framework to explore the direct and lagged effects of job stress, we also examined the moderating effects of online emotions, operationalized in terms of emotional intensity and expression pattern, on the relationship between job stress with job burnout under two evolution paths (i.e. health conditions or turnover intention). This study collected 271 samples through a survey questionnaire for empirical testing, and introduced structural equation models to validate the proposed conceptual model.
Findings
The results show that job stress has a significant positive effect on job burnout, and job burnout maintains a positive relationship with health conditions (or turnover intention) under the interference mechanism. Simultaneously, the online emotions expressed in social media have a positive moderating effect in two stages of the evolution path.
Practical implications
The findings of this study remind the project manager need to timely find and solve the job burnout characteristics of CPs due to excessive job stress, especially to prevent the accidental consequences caused by job burnout.
Originality/value
On this basis, this study provides an important value of using social media to express emotions for the project team to alleviate the adverse of professionals under job stress.
The rise of right-wing populists in Western Europe has often been linked to their ability to exploit social media affordances to fuel anger. While scholarship has already examined the emotional dimension of the populist right’s online communication, with some researchers studying specifically the fuelling of anger among social media users, we still lack empirical proof of the mobilizational effectiveness of what we describe as “anger-triggering communication.” To explore this question, in this article, we develop a statistical and topic analysis of right-wing populists’ Facebook pages in Italy, France, Spain, and Germany during the 2019 European Union (EU) election campaign. We find that (a) right-wing populists on Facebook have a significantly higher number of “Angry” Facebook reactions per post compared to their political adversaries; (b) there is a positive and significant effect of the number of Angry reactions on the number of times a post is shared; (c) Angry reactions and Shares are overrepresented in posts on immigration and security, but anger-fuelled mobilization is not limited to these topics. These findings contribute to the scholarship on social media, emotional communication, and populism, adding insights on the mobilizational effectiveness of negative campaigning. The article highlights that stoking public anger, especially around controversial issues such as immigration and security, is a rewarding tactic because it increases motivational strength, and contributes to triggering high-threshold interactions such as sharing, which, in turn, are key for achieving virality in the diffusion of political messages.
Background
Emerging adulthood (ages 19 to 25 years) is a developmental phase that is marked by increased mental health conditions, especially depression and anxiety. A growing body of work indicates that digital peer emotional support has positive implications for the psychological functioning of emerging adults. There is burgeoning interest among health care professionals, educational stakeholders, and policy makers in understanding the implementation and clinical effectiveness, as well as the associated mechanism of change, of digital peer support as an intervention.
Objective
This randomized controlled trial (RCT) examined the effectiveness of a digital peer support intervention over a digital platform—Acceset—for emerging adult psychological well-being with 3 primary aims. First, we evaluated the implementation effectiveness of digital peer support training for individuals providing support (befrienders) and of the digital platform for peer support. Second, we assessed the clinical outcomes of digital peer support in terms of the intervening effect on emerging adult psychological well-being. Third, we investigated the mechanism of change linking the digital peer support intervention to emerging adult psychological well-being.
Methods
This RCT involving 100 emerging adults from the National University of Singapore follows the published protocol for this trial.
ResultsThis RCT found effectiveness in digital peer support training—specifically, befrienders’ peer support responses demonstrating significantly higher post- than pretraining scores in selfhood (posttraining score: mean 62.83, SD 10.18, and SE 1.72; pretraining score: mean 54.86, SD 7.32, and SE 1.24; t34=3.88; P
Introdução: Os blogs constituem um espaço importante para a expressão de sentimentos, experiências e opiniões, dessa forma, tornou-se relevante investigar o que tem sido publicado relacionado com medicamentos psicotrópicos. Objetivo: Analisar as publicações relacionadas com os medicamentos psicotrópicos em blogs, em língua portuguesa. Métodos: Trata-se de um estudo descritivo, com abordagem qualitativa. Foi escolhida como fonte para colheita de dados uma plataforma de blogs, intitulada TUMBLR. Foram elegíveis para o estudo todas as publicações em língua portuguesa, classificadas como “mais populares”, do tipo “texto” ou “citação” identificáveis por meio das palavras “Antidepressivos”; “Ansiolíticos” e “Antipsicóticos” utilizando o ícone de busca do próprio site. Resultados: Os principais temas abordados nas publicações e que foram incluídas neste estudo são: “Perceções negativas sobre os psicotrópicos’’; “Perceções positivas dos psicotrópicos e redes de apoio”; “Impactos do adoecer mental e do uso de psicotrópicos” e “Comportamento destrutivo e os psicotrópicos”. Conclusões: As perceções negativas sobre os psicotrópicos foi o tema de maior destaque, seguido das perceções positivas que alguns sujeitos atribuem a esses medicamentos. Destaca-se a relevância das redes de apoio no enfrentamento do processo de adoecer e sofrimento mental, sendo o Tumblr mencionado como rede de apoio. Salientaram alguns comportamentos destrutivos e de ideação suicida que poderiam ou não estar relacionados com o uso dos psicotrópicos.
As one of the major platforms of communication, social networks have become a valuable source of opinions and emotions. Considering that sharing of emotions offline and online is quite similar, historical posts from social networks seem to be a valuable source of data for measuring observable subjective well-being (OSWB). In this study, we calculated OSWB indices for the Russian-speaking segment of Twitter using the Affective Social Data Model for Socio-Technical Interactions. This model utilises demographic information and post-stratification techniques to make the data sample representative, by selected characteristics, of the general population of a country. For sentiment analysis, we fine-tuned RuRoBERTa-Large on RuSentiTweet and achieved new state-of-the-art results of F 1 = 0.7229. Several calculated OSWB indicators demonstrated moderate Spearman’s correlation with the traditional survey-based net affect ( r s = 0.469 and r s = 0.5332, p < 0.05) and positive affect ( r s = 0.5177 and r s = 0.548, p < 0.05) indices in Russia.
Purpose
The Internet enables various voices and opinions that previously did not participate in the community discourse to express themselves. People with mental illnesses make use of social networks to advance their special needs in varied ways. The study aims to examine the nature of the discourse that takes place in public and private groups of people with mental illnesses.
Design/methodology/approach
The research corpus consisted of the content of 615 messages taken from public and private groups of people with mental illnesses in Facebook. Linguistic parameters (the total number of words, the number of words in the first person) were examined for each message. Two skilled judges classified the messages on a self-disclosure scale to determine the degree of disclosure of personal information, thoughts and emotions.
Findings
The results of the study indicate that the messages published in public groups are longer than the messages in private groups; however, the level of personal disclosure in messages written in private groups is deeper than in messages written in public groups. In addition, the level of self-disclosure in opening posts was found to be greater than the level of self-disclosure in comments.
Practical implications
In the study, the authors focus on the ways people in excluded populations make use of virtual tools to advance both their personal and social needs.
Originality/value
The study is innovative, as it explores the discourse of people with mental illnesses in public and private groups on Facebook.
Texting is a universal form of communication used by traditional undergraduate students. Its influence on higher education cannot be understated, particularly as it pertains to institutional retention efforts. Communication with an academic advisor has been shown to impact student persistence and retention. Tinto’s theory of student departure posits student persistence is the result of a longitudinal process emphasizing student integration within an institution’s social and academic settings. Student interactions with academic advisors warrant further research given the advisor’s contribution to student integration. Traditional undergraduate students, age 18–24, were surveyed to examine the impact texting with an academic advisor had on a student’s intent to persist. Results indicate a significant, positive correlation exists between a student’s interaction with an academic advisor via text and their intent to persist. Texting, because of its prevalence, warrants consideration in strategic outreach efforts within the academic advising function to positively impact an institution’s retention efforts.
This article explores how individuals use online coping strategies after experiencing a negative life event. Many studies have shown that online coping is of rising importance. However, these studies have not provided all pieces of the puzzle because they tend to focus on one particular online venue (e.g., an online support group or social network site [SNS]) and on a limited number of coping strategies. This article aims to provide a more complete picture, by simultaneously examining multiple online and off-line coping strategies, using a survey administered to a representative sample of the 16+ population of the Netherlands. Furthermore, we analyze what kind of Internet activities are related to online coping and whether online coping is associated with well-being. Some 57% of our sample mentioned some form of online coping. Using the Internet for mental disengagement, active coping and planning were the most reported online coping strategies, whereas strategies aimed at emotional coping were reported less frequently. Online coping encompassed several activities: online gaming, which was associated with mental disengagement; searching for information, which was associated with problem-focused coping; and SNS and online support groups, which were associated with mental disengagement, problem-focused coping, and socioemotional coping. Finally, we examined the correlations between online coping and well-being. Controlling for off-line coping, we found online mental disengagement and online socioemotional coping to be inversely related to life satisfaction, self-esteem, and optimism, whereas correlations between online problem-focused coping and well-being were nonsignificant. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Previous studies demonstrated that people socially share both their positive and negative emotional experiences. This article reports two studies aimed to clarify and assess the motives underlying this human propensity to share emotions. A large number of motives were collected from 182 participants (Study 1). A content analysis resulted in 8 categories of motives; 72 representative items were retained to create a Social Sharing Motives Scale (SSMS). The final structure of the SSMS, tested with 719 respondents, includes 39 items organized into 7 factors, namely ‘‘clarification and meaning,’’ ‘‘rehearsing,’’ ‘‘venting,’’ ‘‘arousing empathy/attention,’’ ‘‘informing and/or warning,’’ ‘‘assistance/support and comfort/consolation,’’ and ‘‘advice and solutions’’ (Study 2). This scale will usefully contribute to the investigation of the role played by interpersonal processes in emotional regulation.
Instant Messaging (IM) plays a major role in online communication, whether through dedicated software or through chat integrated in a social network’s platform. IM-based online conversation enables private, synchronous, interpersonal communication while being invisible and possibly anonymous; facilitates self-disclosure and intimacy; and possesses advantageous features of expressive writing and social support. For adolescents, the use of IM is a legitimate, available, and free alternative vehicle for communicating with peers to ventilate negative emotions and to receive social support and advice. The present study examined effects of IMing friends on the emotional state of distressed adolescents through both pre-post (n = 100) analyses and comparison with an un-distressed group (n = 50). Dependent measures included self-report questionnaires, textual analysis, and expert judges’ evaluations of the conversations. Findings revealed that IM conversation significantly contributed to the well-being of distressed adolescents. In addition, participants’ level of introversion–extroversion moderated the degree of their perceived emotional relief, so that introverted participants profited from IMing more than did extraverts. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of online communication theory, as well as the practical implementations for troubled adolescents.
Mobile technologies such as smartphones and tablets have been rapidly adopted worldwide. Mobile media are now the primary online connection for most individuals. Despite this rapid rise, theories of how mobile media relate to communication patterns and outcomes remain scarce. An affordances approach promises a high-level framework for researching how technologies such as mobile media are integrated into routines, affecting subsequent patterns of communication. In this article, I first consider the theoretical lineage of affordances and how this perspective demonstrates advantages from related theories. Second, I draw on affordances to define "communicative affordances," a perspective that takes communication as a central concern. Finally, I synthesize literature from mobile communication to formulate a typology of communicative affordances of mobile media: portability, availability, locatability, and multimediality. Suggestions are then made for research employing a communicative affordances framework.
“Profile work,” that is strategic self-presentation in social network sites, is configured by both the technical affordances and related social norms. In this article, we address technical and social psychological aspects that underlie acts of sharing by analyzing the social in relation to the technical. Our analysis is based on two complementary sets of qualitative data gleaned from in situ experiences of Finnish youth and young adults within the sharing mechanisms of Facebook and Last.fm. In our analysis, we identified social norms that were formed around the prevailing sharing practices in the two sites and compared them in relation to the sharing mechanisms. The analysis revealed that automated and manual sharing were sanctioned differently. We conclude that although the social norms that guide content sharing differed between the two contexts, there was an identical sociocultural goal in profile work: presentation of authenticity.
The substantial growth in research examining social network sites (SNSs) during recent years makes this an opportune time to reflect on the state of SNS scholarship. In this review, we consider whatin the form of specific brandshas been studied. A content-analysis of SNS research published in six interdisciplinary journals between 1997 and 2013 is first reported to better understand the degree to which studies published in these journals have examined various SNS brands (e.g. Facebook, MySpace, Cyworld, Hyves). The results show that more than two-thirds of SNS studies were explicitly limited to a single brand and that Facebook was the brand examined in approximately 80% of these studies. Five implications of this trend are then discussed as potentially limiting what can be learned in aggregate from such a body of SNS scholarship. The review concludes with recommendations for future research on SNSs.
Ephemeral social media, platforms that display shared content for a limited period of time, have become a prominent component of the social ecosystem. We draw on experience sampling data collected over two weeks (Study 1; N=154) and in-depth interview data from a subsample of participants (Study 2; N = 28) to understand college students’ social and emotional experiences on Snapchat, a popular ephemeral mobile platform. Our quantitative data demonstrated that Snapchat interactions were perceived as more enjoyable – and associated with more positive mood – than other communication technologies. However, Snapchat interactions were also associated with lower social support than other channels. Our qualitative data highlighted aspects of Snapchat use that may facilitate positive affect (but not social support), including sharing mundane experiences with close ties and reduced self-presentational concerns. In addition, users compared Snapchat to face-to-face interaction and reported attending to Snapchat content more closely than archived content, which may contribute to increased emotional rewards. Overall, participants did not see the application as a platform for sharing or viewing photos; rather, Snapchat was viewed as a lightweight channel for sharing spontaneous experiences with trusted ties. Together, these studies contribute to our evolving understanding of ephemeral social media and their role in social relationships.
Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by elevated stress, heightened risky behaviors, and increases in psychopathology. Emotion dysregulation is a hypothesized contributor to negative outcomes and to the onset of psychopathology during adolescence. However, the dysregulation of negative emotion has been the focus of research while the literature on positive emotion in adolescent psychopathology is limited. This review highlights both the development of normative and dysregulated positive emotion during adolescence. First, the literature on normative adolescent emotional development and on negative emotional regulation is briefly reviewed, followed by a discussion of current theories of positive emotion, which are grounded in the adult literature. From a developmental perspective, the dimension of approach motivation within positive emotion is emphasized throughout and frames the review. This conceptualization guides organization of literatures on normative experiences of positive emotion in adolescence and the role of dysregulated positive emotion in adolescent psychopathology, specifically adolescent depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, externalizing disorders and eating disorders. Last, future directions in the study of adolescent positive emotion and its regulation and the implications of highlighting approach motivation in normative and dysregulated positive emotion in adolescence are detailed.
The Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) is a non-verbal pictorial assessment technique that directly measures the pleasure, arousal, and dominance associated with a person's affective reaction to a wide variety of stimuli. In this experiment, we compare reports of affective experience obtained using SAM, which requires only three simple judgments, to the Semantic Differential scale devised by Mehrabian and Russell (An approach to environmental psychology, 1974) which requires 18 different ratings. Subjective reports were measured to a series of pictures that varied in both affective valence and intensity. Correlations across the two rating methods were high both for reports of experienced pleasure and felt arousal. Differences obtained in the dominance dimension of the two instruments suggest that SAM may better track the personal response to an affective stimulus. SAM is an inexpensive, easy method for quickly assessing reports of affective response in many contexts.