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Citation: Boyle, S.C.; Baez, S.; Trager,
B.M.; LaBrie, J.W. Systematic Bias in
Self-Reported Social Media Use in the
Age of Platform Swinging:
Implications for Studying Social
Media Use in Relation to Adolescent
Health Behavior. Int. J. Environ. Res.
Public Health 2022,19, 9847. https://
doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19169847
Academic Editor: Carlos Salavera
Received: 30 June 2022
Accepted: 5 August 2022
Published: 10 August 2022
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4.0/).
International Journal of
Environmental Research
and Public Health
Article
Systematic Bias in Self-Reported Social Media Use in the Age
of Platform Swinging: Implications for Studying Social Media
Use in Relation to Adolescent Health Behavior
Sarah C. Boyle * , Sebastian Baez, Bradley M. Trager and Joseph W. LaBrie
HeadsUP Labs, Department of Psychological Science, Loyola Marymount University,
Los Angeles, CA 90045, USA
*Correspondence: sarah.boyle@lmu.edu
Abstract:
Public health researchers are increasingly interested in the potential relationships between
social media (SM) use, well-being, and health behavior among adolescents. However, most research
has assessed daily SM time via self-report survey questions, despite a lack of clarity around the
accuracy of such reports given the current tendency of youth to access SM on multiple electronic
devices and cycle between multiple SM platforms on a daily basis (i.e., platform swinging). The
current study investigates the potential for systematic reporting biases to skew findings. Three
hundred and twenty incoming college students downloaded software on their computers, tablets,
and smartphones to track their active use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat over a 2-week
surveillance period and then self-reported their average daily minutes on each platform immediately
after. Larger proportions of students over-estimated than under-estimated their use, with the largest
overestimations found on the most heavily used platforms. Females logged significantly more SM
time and were less accurate in reporting than were males and, independently, the likelihood of
substantial inaccuracies in reporting total SM time and time on most individual platforms increased
with each additional SM platform participants reported using. Findings demonstrate that self-
reported estimates of SM time among adolescents in the age of SM platform swinging are prone
to substantial error and may lead to biased conclusions about relationships between variables.
Alternative measurement approaches are suggested to improve the validity of future research in
this area.
Keywords:
social media use; adolescence; objective assessment; self-report assessment; validity;
platform swinging
1. Introduction
Social media (SM) has become an increasingly important aspect of adolescence, pro-
viding opportunities for bonding and bridging social capital, peer interaction, identity
expression, and connection to others outside of their immediate environments [
1
–
3
]. Yet,
research has also highlighted potential dark sides of SM, with studies linking greater
time on SM to a myriad of negative outcomes, including depression [
4
,
5
]), body image
concerns [
6
,
7
]), sleep disturbance [
8
,
9
], alcohol use [
10
,
11
], misperceived health behavior
norms [
12
,
13
], and cyberbullying victimization [
14
]. However, most studies examining
these relationships have relied on survey items to retrospectively assess daily or weekly
on a specific SM platform or across all SM used, acknowledging that the accuracy with
which individuals are able to retrospectively self-report these behaviors is unclear. While
commonly identified as a study limitation, other recent research has argued that reporting
errors in the domain of SM time are likely to be random rather than systematic [
15
], and
therefore should not be of great concern to the researchers asking these questions. Given
the increasing interest in the psychosocial and behavioral correlates of SM use during
adolescence, the current study furthers this debate using improved methods. Consistent
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022,19, 9847. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19169847 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022,19, 9847 2 of 15
with adolescents’ present tendency to regularly use multiple SM platforms on multiple
electronic devices [
16
,
17
], this research employs cross-device objective time-tracking soft-
ware to evaluate and compare the validity of young adults’ self-reported daily time on four
widely used SM platforms. Also examined are three novel factors that may be systemati-
cally associated with an increased likelihood of inaccurate self-reports in the current SM
landscape: the particular SM platform in question, the sex of the participant, and the total
number of SM platforms used by the participant.
1.1. Previous Research and Limitations
Among the first to consider the potential for inaccuracy in retrospective reporting of
SM time was Junco [
18
]. A software program was installed on the personal computers of
participating college students to monitor the minutes per day they spent on Facebook over
a 30-day period. Results revealed that students substantially overestimated their Facebook
use, self-reporting an average of 145 min per day of active use while objectively logging
only an average of 26 min. This study was limited in that it objectively tracked Facebook
time on students’ computers but not on other devices (i.e., smartphones, tablets), and
included a small sample (N= 49) of mostly female (73%) students preventing examination
of sex differences. Moreover, fewer than half of the students who completed the baseline
survey (which comprised only 17% of students to whom it was sent) agreed to install the
computer tracking application, further limiting generalizability. In recent years, several
studies have revisited the issue of self-report accuracy in the context of SM use, generally
replicating two findings with larger samples: reporting inaccuracies are common, and they
tend toward the direction of over-reporting [
19
,
20
]. However, these studies share substan-
tial limitations with the initial investigation [
18
] including the assessment of SM time on
one specific electronic device (iPhones) [
20
], a single platform [
19
], or lumping time on
multiple SM platforms together to examine total time [
15
,
20
]. Due to these issues, findings
and implications are limited in their usefulness to researchers designing new studies. For
instance, in single device studies, some portion of participants’ reporting errors may be
attributed to difficulty cognitively separating SM time on a specific device (i.e., iPhone)
from total SM time across electronic devices (e.g., iPhone, tablet, and computer). Thus,
participants may report total time across devices while only time on a specific device is
tracked, artificially leading researchers to observe over-estimation. Further, findings from
studies investigating self-report accuracy for total time across a broad category of SM have
unclear implications for researchers who tend to be interested in the use of specific SM
platforms [
6
,
21
] in order to inform the development of platform-specific health intervention
or prevention efforts [
22
,
23
]. Previous studies require the assumption that self-report accu-
racy is consistent across SM platforms used more and less frequently used by adolescents,
despite some evidence that heavier SM use affords greater opportunity for reporting an
error [
20
]. Additionally, few studies have investigated platform or participant-level factors
that may increase the likelihood or degree of inaccuracy or over-reporting. Greater insight
into these factors may help public health researchers investigating adolescents’ social media
time optimize their methods.
1.2. Explanations for Reporting Inaccuracy and Potential Systematic Predictors
Social desirability [
24
,
25
], careless responding [
26
], the construction of self-report
assessments [
27
,
28
], and social identity-related self-perception [
29
–
31
] are common ex-
planations for measurement error in survey research with adolescents. Although youth
are likely to perceive adult researchers to find their spending less time on SM more de-
sirable than more time, adolescents and emerging adults have been found more likely to
over-report this behavior, suggesting that social desirability concerns may not explain SM
reporting inaccuracies well. However, recent findings suggest that careless responding
may play at least some role in the inaccuracy of SM use estimations among adolescents.
Sewall [
20
] highlighted associations between depressed mood, heavier iPhone-specific
SM use, and larger discrepancies between objective assessment and self-reported iPhone-
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022,19, 9847 3 of 15
specific time on SM. Thus, the depressed mood appears to be one factor that may lead to
inaccuracy potentially through a lack of motivation. Building on this work, this research
examines how identity processes, self-perception, and use of specific SM platforms may also
be implicated in the accuracy of self-reported use time and the direction of discrepancies.
1.2.1. SM Platform
Recent surveys of American adolescents have revealed patterns of frequent and heavy
use of Snapchat and Instagram coupled with dwindling Facebook and Twitter engage-
ment [
32
–
35
].. Meanwhile, research in the domain of behavior measurement suggests
that self-reports of behavioral data are often inaccurate especially if the behaviors in ques-
tion comprise habitual and indistinct events such as frequency of anger or smartphone
use [
36
,
37
]. Given that recent data suggests that young adults may engage in the habitual
use of some SM platforms (Instagram, Snapchat) more than others (Facebook, Twitter),
it follows that there may also be platform-based differences in the accuracy with which
students self-report their use. Likewise, Junco [
18
] proposed that students’ estimates of
their Facebook use may have been inflated by stereotypes and media depictions of young
adults as heavy Facebook users. However, since 2013, stereotypes around SM use have
shifted considerably with Facebook now recognized as tremendously popular with older
adults, and consequentially, less frequented by young people [
38
]. In contrast, today’s news
stories, song lyrics, and television shows more frequently reflect the popularity of Insta-
gram, Snapchat, and other image-based platforms among youth [
39
,
40
] potentially making
young adults more likely to overestimate their own use of these popular SM platforms.
This prediction is consistent with the finding that behaviors recognized to be normative
in the peer group are commonly over-reported in surveys due to identity processes and
self-perception [29–31].
1.2.2. Reporter Sex
Participant sex and gender may similarly impact the reliability of reporting on SM-
related behaviors through identity-related processes. American females reliably self-report
more time on SM than do males [
41
–
43
]. However, it remains unknown whether these
sex differences in self-reported SM use coincide with objective reality or reflect artifacts of
gendered self-perception. For instance, research suggests that females devote more of their
online time to maintaining and cultivating interpersonal relationships whereas males tend
to be more focused on information-seeking and non-social tasks [
44
]. Further, females tend
to derive a greater sense of self through the strengths of their social ties and relationships
than do males [
45
]. Thus, it stands to reason that heavy SM use may be perceived as
more normative among females than males, potentially making females more likely to
overestimate their time on SM.
1.2.3. SM Platform Swinging
The majority of young adults today engage in platform swinging, a term coined by
Tandoc and colleagues [
3
] to describe the regular use of multiple SM platforms and the
routine rotation or cycling of engagement between platforms. As a large proportion of the
SM research conducted to date has focused on one platform (i.e., Facebook or Instagram),
there has been very little consideration of platform swinging’s potential cognitive effects.
For instance, it is unknown whether platform swinging reflects habitual behavior or more
deliberate and conscious processes. Also unknown is the extent to which platform swingers
are able to cognitively distinguish between their time on different platforms. Thus, with
regard to SM research methods, a critical question lies in whether platform swinging
impedes young adults’ ability to accurately report their time across the multiple SM
platforms they use. That is, just as multitasking on mobile devices has been found to
increase recall biases for different app usage categories [
46
,
47
] cycling engagement between
a greater number of SM platforms may result in decreased accuracy when self-reporting
time on individual platforms.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022,19, 9847 4 of 15
1.3. The Current Study
Building on Junco’s initial investigation [
18
], this study recruited a large sample of
incoming college students and utilized a novel software application to track students’ active
minutes per day using Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter across their electronic
devices (personal computers, tablets, smartphones). Informed by Junco’s findings, we
predicted that students would exhibit sizable inaccuracies in their self-reported use across
platforms (
H1
) with students more likely to overestimate than underestimate their daily
use (
H2
). Guided by research on the impact of identity and self-perception in the survey
measurement context, poorer accuracy and greater over-estimations of use were expected
for Instagram and Snapchat, relative to older platforms Facebook and Twitter, due to
heavier actual use of these newer platforms by participants and media representations of
young adults as heavy users (
H3
). Extending the same logic, we also predicted that female
students would be more prone to inaccuracies and more likely to overestimate their SM
use than male students (
H4
). Finally, we hypothesized that self-reporting use of a greater
number of SM platforms during the surveillance period would increase the likelihood of
substantially over-estimating time across SM platforms and on any given platform (H5).
2. Methods and Materials
2.1. Participants
Participants were 320 matriculating college students recruited as part of a larger study
investigating SM influences among incoming college students at a mid-sized university
in the western United States. Recruitment took place over a two-week period in July of
2018, prior to matriculation. To be eligible for the larger study, students had to be registered
as an incoming first-year student, 18 years of age or older, in possession of an Apple or
Android smartphone, active on at least one SM platform, and planning to live on campus
during their first year. Interested students meeting eligibility requirements were invited to
complete baseline assessments until the 320 spots in the study were filled, which occurred
in approximately one week. The study’s sample was representative of the freshman class
at the host university as the mean age of the sample was 18.60 years (SD = 0.26), 63% were
female, 48% were Caucasian, 15% were Asian, 10% were African American, 17% were
Hispanic, and 9% were multi-racial or other.
2.2. Recruitment and Study Procedures
Prior to the start of the fall semester, the Registrar’s office emailed incoming first-year
students a link to the larger study’s informational website, which detailed all study proce-
dures and included a link to a screening survey that allowed interested students to assess
their eligibility. Eligible students were invited to participate and, after providing informed
consent, completed a baseline survey. At the end of the baseline survey, participants were
prompted to install a custom research version of the software application, RescueTime,
onto their smartphones, tablets, and personal computers to track their Facebook, Instagram,
Snapchat, and Twitter use over a two-week surveillance period. Blind to the RescueTime
data being collected from their devices during this time, participants were texted and
emailed a link to complete a short survey at the end of the two-week period. The first
page of the survey prompted students to estimate their average daily minutes spent on
each of the four SM platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat) over the pre-
vious 2 weeks. Upon submission, participants with Android phones were directed to a
personalized dashboard at which they could view their RescueTime SM time tracking data.
However, as the RescueTime software application was not fully compatible with iPhones,
participants with iPhones were first directed to a survey page that provided instructions
for navigating to the application battery usage screen of their iPhone, using battery screen
settings to display active SM application use data in minutes per day over the previous
2 weeks, taking a screenshot of the data displayed, and uploading this screenshot into
the survey. Following submission, they advanced to the RescueTime dashboard. The
university’s Institutional Review Board approved all study procedures and measures.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022,19, 9847 5 of 15
2.3. Measures
2.3.1. Demographics
Participants reported basic demographic information including sex, age, race,
and ethnicity.
2.3.2. Objective Daily Time on SM
A custom research version of RescueTime, a commercially available cross-device time
management software program, was used in this study to track participants’ total minutes
of active Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter use on their personal computers,
tablets, and smartphones. Participants were required to install the custom application
on at least two electronic devices (i.e., personal computers, tablets, smartphones) to track
their SM use over a surveillance period spanning the first 2 weeks of August, prior to
matriculation. During the surveillance period, participants could not view any of their
RescueTime use data. Meanwhile, a data dashboard allowed the research team to check
device installs for each participant and export CSV files detailing each participant’s total
minutes spent actively using Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter applications and
related websites across devices. Following the surveillance period, this data was exported
and the total minutes of active use on each SM for each participant were divided by 14 to
calculate an objective measure of average daily minutes spent on each SM platform during
the 2-week period. In addition, average daily minutes on each SM were summed to derive
an objective measure of total minutes per day on SM.
2.3.3. Supplemental Battery Screen Data (iPhone Owners Only)
As the RescueTime software application was not fully compatible with iPhones, iPhone
owners were required to follow additional steps to ensure that the time they spent actively
using the four SM platforms from their phones during the surveillance period could be
combined with the data from their other electronic devices logged by RescueTime. After
self-reporting their SM use at the end of the surveillance period, iPhone users were directed
to a second survey page which provided detailed step-by-step instructions for navigating
to the application battery usage screen of their iPhone, manipulating the battery screen
settings to display active SM application use data in minutes per day over the previous
2 weeks, taking a screenshot of the data displayed, and uploading this screenshot into
the survey. Battery screen data documenting each iPhone user’s total minutes of active
Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter IOS app usage over the 14-day period was
pulled from these screenshots and added to each participant’s RescueTime derived total
minutes of active use across their other devices (computers, tablets), prior to computing
average daily use for each platform.
2.3.4. Self-Reported Platform Use and Daily SM Time
Immediately following the surveillance period, participants were sent a brief survey
that prompted them to indicate the SM platforms they actively used during the previous
2 weeks from a list that included Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram. Then, for
each platform they reported using, participants were prompted to estimate their average
minutes per day of active use over the previous 2 weeks. Platform-specific daily minute
estimates were used individually in analyses and were also summed to create a composite
measure of self-reported daily total time on SM.
2.4. Analytic Plan
First, patterns of SM platform use according to self-report and objective measures are
examined via descriptive statistics and t-tests. Then, the prediction that students would
exhibit significant inaccuracies in estimating their daily SM use (H1) is dually examined via
paired sampled t-tests focused on discrepancies between measures of SM time and bivariate
correlations between measures. Next, tests of directional hypotheses H2–H5, which focus
on the likelihood of problematic overestimation versus underestimation versus accurate
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022,19, 9847 6 of 15
reporting of daily SM time, are evaluated by more meaningfully classifying participants
based on the size and direction of their reporting discrepancies. Cut-points used to classify
participants were informed by the distribution of reporting discrepancies in the sample as
well as consideration of the degree of error that may be meaningful in the applied health
research context. For each platform and across platforms, participants who self-reported
use within
±
9 min of their objective assessment are classified as “Accurate”, those who
self-reported time 10 or more minutes less than their objective assessment are classified as
“Underestimators”, and those who self-reported time exceeding their objectively logged
time by 10 min or more are classified as “Overestimators”. The predictions that participants
would be more likely to overestimate than underestimate their use overall (H2) and be
more likely to overestimate their daily time on newer platforms relative to older platforms
(H3) are evaluated by comparing proportions of participants classified as Underestima-
tors, Overestimators, or Accurate Reporters via Chi-Square Goodness of Fit tests. Then
to evaluate H4 and H5, multinomial regression models predicting participant accuracy
classification (i.e., underestimator, overestimator, or accurate reporter) are examined for
each SM platform and across all SM as functions of participant sex (H4) and the total
number of SM platforms participants reported using (H5).
3. Results
3.1. Preliminary Analysis
Figure 1compares the “users” of each SM platform in terms of the percentages of
participants who self-reported active use versus objectively logged minutes of active use.
Striking here is the observation that greater numbers of participants self-reported active
use of Facebook (n= 289) and Twitter (n= 199) than objectively logged any time on these
platforms (Facebook n= 206; Twitter n= 150) during the surveillance period. Meanwhile,
for Instagram and Snapchat, which were more widely used in the sample, similar numbers
of participants self-reported (Instagram n= 304; Snapchat n= 297) and objectively logged
use (Instagram n= 301; Snapchat n= 296).
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, x FOR PEER REVIEW 7 of 16
Figure 1. Percentages of the sample self-reporting versus logging active use of each SM.
As proportionally depicted in Figure 2, the number of SM platforms used by partici-
pants significantly differed by assessment type, t(318) = 12.14, p < 0.001, with the number
of SM platforms used according to self-report (M = 3.41 SD = 0.77) exceeding those used
according to objective data (M = 2.97 SD = 0.87). By sex, male (M = 3.38, SD = 0.84) and
female (M = 3.43, SD = 0.72) participants did not significantly differ in the number of SM
platforms they self-reported using, t(318) = −0.61, p = 0.54. However, objectively, males (M
= 2.84 SD = 0.95) logged time on significantly fewer platforms than did females (M = 3.06
SD = 0.80).
Figure 2. Number (#) of SM platforms “used” assessed via self-report and objectively logged time.
Table 1 presents raw means and standard deviations for objectively assessed and self-
reported minutes per day on each SM. Within sets of self-reports and objective assess-
ments, paired samples t-tests examined platform-based differences in minutes per day of
active use with significant differences flagged in the overall column. Consistent with re-
cently published SM trends among adolescents and young adults based on self-reported
data (Auxier & Anderson, 2021), both sexes self-reported and objectively logged greater
daily time on Snapchat and Instagram than they did on older SM platforms, Facebook and
90.5
62.4
95.3 93.1
64.6
47
94.4 92.8
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Facebook Twitter Instagram Snapchat
Self-Reported Use Objectively Logged Use
9, 3% 28, 9%
104, 32%
178, 56%
Self-Reported # of SM Used
1 SM 2 SM 3 SM 4 SM
17, 5%
74, 23%
128, 40%
101, 32%
Objective # of SM Used
1 SM 2 SM 3 SM 4 SM
Figure 1. Percentages of the sample self-reporting versus logging active use of each SM.
As proportionally depicted in Figure 2, the number of SM platforms used by partici-
pants significantly differed by assessment type, t(318) = 12.14, p< 0.001, with the number
of SM platforms used according to self-report (M= 3.41, SD = 0.77) exceeding those used
according to objective data (M= 2.97, SD = 0.87). By sex, male (M= 3.38, SD = 0.84) and
female (M= 3.43, SD = 0.72) participants did not significantly differ in the number of SM
platforms they self-reported using, t(318) =
−
0.61, p= 0.54. However, objectively, males
(M= 2.84, SD = 0.95) logged time on significantly fewer platforms than did females
(M= 3.06, SD = 0.80).
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022,19, 9847 7 of 15
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, x FOR PEER REVIEW 7 of 16
Figure 1. Percentages of the sample self-reporting versus logging active use of each SM.
As proportionally depicted in Figure 2, the number of SM platforms used by partici-
pants significantly differed by assessment type, t(318) = 12.14, p < 0.001, with the number
of SM platforms used according to self-report (M = 3.41 SD = 0.77) exceeding those used
according to objective data (M = 2.97 SD = 0.87). By sex, male (M = 3.38, SD = 0.84) and
female (M = 3.43, SD = 0.72) participants did not significantly differ in the number of SM
platforms they self-reported using, t(318) = −0.61, p = 0.54. However, objectively, males (M
= 2.84 SD = 0.95) logged time on significantly fewer platforms than did females (M = 3.06
SD = 0.80).
Figure 2. Number (#) of SM platforms “used” assessed via self-report and objectively logged time.
Table 1 presents raw means and standard deviations for objectively assessed and self-
reported minutes per day on each SM. Within sets of self-reports and objective assess-
ments, paired samples t-tests examined platform-based differences in minutes per day of
active use with significant differences flagged in the overall column. Consistent with re-
cently published SM trends among adolescents and young adults based on self-reported
data (Auxier & Anderson, 2021), both sexes self-reported and objectively logged greater
daily time on Snapchat and Instagram than they did on older SM platforms, Facebook and
90.5
62.4
95.3 93.1
64.6
47
94.4 92.8
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Facebook Twitter Instagram Snapchat
Self-Reported Use Objectively Logged Use
9, 3% 28, 9%
104, 32%
178, 56%
Self-Reported # of SM Used
1 SM 2 SM 3 SM 4 SM
17, 5%
74, 23%
128, 40%
101, 32%
Objective # of SM Used
1 SM 2 SM 3 SM 4 SM
Figure 2. Number (#) of SM platforms “used” assessed via self-report and objectively logged time.
Table 1presents raw means and standard deviations for objectively assessed and self-
reported minutes per day on each SM. Within sets of self-reports and objective assessments,
paired samples t-tests examined platform-based differences in minutes per day of active
use with significant differences flagged in the overall column. Consistent with recently
published SM trends among adolescents and young adults based on self-reported data
(Auxier & Anderson, 2021), both sexes self-reported and objectively logged greater daily
time on Snapchat and Instagram than they did on older SM platforms, Facebook and Twitter.
Within measurement sets, independent samples t-tests also examined sex differences in
minutes per day of use by SM platform and overall. Consistent with previous self-report
findings, relative to males (M= 87.84, SD = 75.85), females objectively logged (M= 110.60,
SD = 99.32) significantly greater daily time on SM, F(1, 318) = 4.69, p= 0.03, with females’
greater time on Instagram and Snapchat primarily driving these differences. A parallel but
slightly more extreme pattern of sex differences was observed among self-report estimates.
Table 1.
Objectively assessed and self-reported daily minutes of active SM use and discrepancies
between measures overall and by sex.
Overall (N= 319) Males (N= 121) Females (N= 198)
M(SD)M(SD)M(SD)
Objective Measure
Facebook A11.49 (18.26) ***C, D 10.34 (20.51) 12.19 (16.75)
Twitter B14.32 (33.65) ***C, D 14.25 (29.01) 14.36 (36.20)
Instagram C34.42 (37.49) ***A, B 27.60 (28.12) 38.58 (41.71)
Snapchat D41.75 (43.09) ***A, B 35.65 (36.43) 45.46 (46.37)
Total SM 101.99 (91.70) 87.84 (75.85) 110.60 (99.32)
Self-Report Measure
Facebook A18.28 (30.12) ***C, D 17.00 (29.58) 19.07 (30.49)
Twitter B20.69 (32.75) ***C, D 18.93 (29.35) 21.76 (34.69)
Instagram C49.96 (52.12) ***A, B 31.56 (27.82) 61.21 (59.82)
Snapchat D57.51 (68.08) ***A, B 42.31 (43.18) 66.80 (78.21)
Total SM 146.38 (129.54) 109.80 (87.01) 168.74 (145.44)
Meandiff
Facebook A−6.83 (28.62) *** −6.65 (27.76) ** −6.93 (29.21) ***
Twitter B−6.34 (35.68) ** −4.70 (28.89) −7.34 (39.29) **
Instagram C−15.53 (55.28) *** −3.95 (29.72) −22.60 (65.28) ***
Snapchat D−15.98 (65.10) *** −6.66 (37.25) −21.67 (76.87) ***
Total SM −44.60 (137.79) *** −21.95 (78.50) ** −58.45 (162.44) ***
Notes. Objective and Self-Report Measure rows in the overall column flag significant differences between time
spent on individual SM platforms which are labeled
A–D
(Facebook
A
, Twitter
B
, Instagram
C
, and Snapchat
D
). The Mean
diff
rows at the bottom of the table indicate significant mean differences between Objective and
Self-Report Measures for each platform and overall (computed as Objective minus Self-report) are flagged.
** p< 0.01, *** p< 0.001 throughout).
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022,19, 9847 8 of 15
3.2. Accuracy of Self-Reported Daily SM Time (H1)
Tests of the mean differences between self-report and objective measures are presented
at the bottom of Table 1. Indicating support for H1, overall participants exhibited significant
discrepancies in their self-report estimates of SM time overall and on each platform. Al-
though measurement discrepancies were bidirectional, the negative values of discrepancies
indicate that the average participant overestimated, rather than underestimated their use of
each platform. Correlations provided in Table 2between self-report and objective measures
of daily SM time overall and by sex offer additional support for H1. Tests of differences
between male and female-specific correlations by platform and overall are presented in
the right-most column of Table 2. The relationship between self-reported and objectively
assessed total daily SM time was significantly weaker among females than males (Z= 3.79,
p< 0.001), and this was primarily driven by females’ weaker correlations between measures
of daily Instagram (p= 0.01), Snapchat (p= 0.003) time. Thus, females were less accurate
than males in reporting their total daily SM time, and this was primarily driven by females’
poorer accuracy in reporting their Instagram and Snapchat time.
Table 2.
Bivariate correlations between retrospectively self-reported and objectively assessed daily
minutes spent on SM among all participants and self-reported users overall and by sex.
Overall By Sex
R R Males RFemales ZSex Rdiff
Facebook 0.39 *** 0.43 *** 0.35 *** 0.81
Twitter 0.42 *** 0.51 *** 0.38 *** 1.39
Instagram 0.27 *** 0.44 *** 0.21 ** 2.22 **
Snapchat 0.32 *** 0.57 *** 0.32 *** 2.70 **
All SM 0.26 *** 0.54 *** 0.16 * 3.79 ***
Notes. Z Sex R
diff
refers to tests of the difference between the male and female specific correlation coefficients;
*p< 0.05, ** p< 0.01, *** p< 0.001.
3.3. Major versus Minor Inaccuracies in Self-Report Overall (H2) and by SM Platform (H3)
In contrast to raw discrepancies and correlations between measures, our classification
of participants as accurate reporters, under-estimators, and over-estimators more mean-
ingfully identified the proportions of participants who substantially and problematically
misreported their SM time in either direction relative to those who were inconsequen-
tially off only a handful of minutes (See Figure 3). In support of H2, a significantly larger
percentage of participants were substantially over-estimated (59%) than substantially under-
estimated (23%) or accurately reported (18%) their total SM time, X
2
(2)= 95.14, p< 0.001.
Providing support for H3, relative to the numbers of participants who substantially over-
estimated their time on older, lesser-used platforms, Facebook (n= 80, 25.1%) and Twitter
(n= 85, 26.6%), nearly twice as many over-estimated their time on newer, more heavily
used platforms, Instagram (n= 145, 45.5%) and Snapchat (n= 157, 49.2%), all ps < 0.001.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, x FOR PEER REVIEW 9 of 16
Table 2. Bivariate correlations between retrospectively self-reported and objectively assessed daily
minutes spent on SM among all participants and self-reported users overall and by sex.
Overall By Sex
R R Males R Females
Z
Sex Rdiff
Facebook 0.39 *** 0.43 *** 0.35 *** 0.81
Twitter 0.42 *** 0.51 *** 0.38 *** 1.39
Instagram 0.27 *** 0.44 *** 0.21 ** 2.22 **
Snapchat 0.32 *** 0.57 *** 0.32 *** 2.70 **
All SM 0.26 *** 0.54 *** 0.16 * 3.79 ***
Notes. Z Sex Rdiff refers to tests of the difference between the male and female specific correlation
coefficients; * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
3.3. Major versus Minor Inaccuracies in Self-Report Overall (H2) and by SM Platform (H3)
In contrast to raw discrepancies and correlations between measures, our classifica-
tion of participants as accurate reporters, under-estimators, and over-estimators more
meaningfully identified the proportions of participants who substantially and problemat-
ically misreported their SM time in either direction relative to those who were inconse-
quentially off only a handful of minutes (See Figure 3). In support of H2, a significantly
larger percentage of participants were substantially over-estimated (59%) than substan-
tially under-estimated (23%) or accurately reported (18%) their total SM time, X2(2)= 95.14,
p < 0.001. Providing support for H3, relative to the numbers of participants who substan-
tially over-estimated their time on older, lesser-used platforms, Facebook (n = 80, 25.1%)
and Twitter (n = 85, 26.6%), nearly twice as many over-estimated their time on newer,
more heavily used platforms, Instagram (n = 145, 45.5%) and Snapchat (n = 157, 49.2%), all
ps < 0.001.
Figure 3. Percentages of students under-reporting, accurately reporting, and over-reporting their
social media use by platform and across all platforms among all participants.
3.4. Is Sex (H4) or # of SM Used (H5) Related to Likelihood of Over/Under-Estimation?
Table 3 presents results from multinomial regression models examining the relative
impacts of female sex and the number of SM platforms participants reported using on the
12.6 18.3 19.7 16.1 22.9
54.9
34.7 38.6 38.9 18.2
32.5
47 41.7 45
58.9
FACEBOOK INSTAGRAM SNAPCHAT TWITTER OVERALL
PERCENTAGE
Under Accurate Over
Figure 3.
Percentages of students under-reporting, accurately reporting, and over-reporting their
social media use by platform and across all platforms among all participants.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022,19, 9847 9 of 15
3.4. Is Sex (H4) or # of SM Used (H5) Related to Likelihood of Over/Under-Estimation?
Table 3presents results from multinomial regression models examining the relative
impacts of female sex and the number of SM platforms participants reported using on
the likelihood of substantially under-estimating or over-estimating (relative to accurately
reporting) total SM time and time on each individual platform.
Table 3.
Multinomial regression models predicting the odds of self-report classification (relative to
Accurate) for each SM platform as a function of participant sex and total number of SM platforms used.
Platform Outcome Predictors OR 95% CI [OR]
Facebook
Under-estimator Female Sex 0.89 0.39–2.03
Number of SM platforms used 1.01 0.59–1.72
Over-estimator Female Sex 1.36 0.79–2.33
Number of SM platforms used 0.96 0.69–1.35
Twitter
Under-estimator Female Sex 1.08 0.44–2.67
Number of SM platforms used 6.07 ** 2.14–17.21
Over-estimator Sex 1.19 0.67–2.13
Number of SM platforms used 7.94 ** 4.10–15.37
Instagram
Under-estimator Female Sex 1.22 0.64–2.31
Number of SM platforms used 1.06 0.72–1.57
Over-estimator Sex 2.15 ** 1.29–3.59
Number of SM platforms used 1.51 ** 1.08–2.10
Snapchat
Under-estimator Female Sex 1.92 * 1.01–3.64
Number of SM platforms used 1.69 * 1.08–2.66
Over-estimator Female Sex 2.26 ** 1.35–3.79
Number of SM platforms used 1.43 * 1.03–2.00
Total SM
Under-estimator Sex 1.28 0.63–2.58
Number of SM platforms used 1.38 0.91–2.08
Over-estimator Sex 1.43 0.78–2.62
Number of SM platforms used 1.82 ** 1.26–2.60
Notes. OR refers to Odds Ratio and 95% CI of [OR] refers the 95% confidence interval for the Odds Ratio;
*p< 0.05, ** p< 0.01.
Suggesting a lack of support for H4, female sex was not significantly associated with
over-estimating (relative to accurately reporting) total daily SM time when the number
of SM platforms used was held constant. However, being female was associated with
increased odds of over-estimating daily time on Instagram and both over-estimating and
under-estimating time on Snapchat. Meanwhile, female sex was not related to the likelihood
of over-estimating or underestimating time on less used platforms Twitter or Facebook. In
support of H5, holding constant sex, reporting use of a greater number of SM platforms was
related to significantly greater odds of substantially over-estimating (relative to accurately
reporting) total daily time on SM. Results varied somewhat by individual platform. Consis-
tent with H5, using a greater number of platforms was associated with an increased odds of
substantially over-estimating daily time on Instagram. Meanwhile, using a greater number
of SM platforms was significantly associated with increased odds of both substantially
over-estimating and under-estimating daily time on Snapchat and Twitter. In sum, as the
number of SM platforms participants reported using on a daily basis increased, so did the
likelihood of committing substantial inaccuracies in self-reporting total SM time as well as
time on 3 of 4 the individual SM platforms of focus in this study.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022,19, 9847 10 of 15
4. Discussion
This study compared objective cross-device SM time-tracking data to self-reported
daily SM time in order to investigate whether systematic reporting biases may obscure
public health researchers’ understanding of psychosocial and behavioral correlates of SM
use. Concerningly, many participants in this study were unable to accurately report the
number of SM platforms they used during the 2-week surveillance period, reporting use of
Facebook and Twitter during this period despite objectively spending no time at all on these
platforms across their electronic devices. Further, examining the accuracy of self-reported
daily time spent on four popular SM platforms individually across electronic devices
yielded results largely consistent with those from previous studies focused on the use of a
specific SM platform on a specific device [
18
]: inaccuracies were abundant and tended to be
in the direction of over-estimation. However, in contrast to recent findings suggesting that
inaccuracies in self-report are random and should not be of concern in survey research [
15
],
results from this study revealed the likelihood of meaningful overestimation to be a function
of both specific SM platform in question and participant sex. As expected, participants
were more likely to overestimate time spent on the platforms they used more heavily (e.g.,
Instagram and Snapchat) relative to those used less (e.g., Facebook and Twitter). Thus,
platform-based differences in the accuracy of self-report may simply be a function of daily
time spent on a platform (e.g., spending greater time on Instagram and Snapchat may make
it more difficult to accurately report daily time on these platforms) rather than cognitive
factors or platform characteristics. However, these findings are also consistent with the
implicit theory explanation introduced by Junco [
18
] nearly a decade ago as well as sources
of survey measurement error rooted in social identity and peer norms [
29
–
31
]. That is,
because pop culture depictions of young people as particularly heavy users of Instagram
and Snapchat are plentiful, adolescents’ estimates of their daily time on these platforms may
also be inflated by perceptions of normative use among in-group peers. Similarly, results
revealed that females spent more time than males on SM platforms considered normative
amongst youth (Instagram and Snapchat) and are also more likely to overestimate their
daily time on these SM. These findings are not surprising given that these SM platforms
may help satisfy psychological needs that are typically stronger in females than males:
cultivating interpersonal relationships [
44
] and deriving a greater sense of self through
social ties [
45
]. Thus, females’ greater tendency toward over-estimation may be explained
both by their greater time spent on particular SM and perceived gender-specific norms
regarding the use of those platforms.
Given the ever-expanding SM landscape and adolescents’ tendency toward platform
swinging [
3
], this study’s most important finding may be the link between the number of
SM platforms used during the surveillance period and the accuracy of self-reported time on
individual platforms. In sum, as the number of SM platforms participants reported using
increased, so did the likelihood of committing substantial inaccuracies in self-reporting total
SM time as well as time on 3 of the 4 individual SM platforms assessed. Thus, it appears
that platform swinging does indeed impede young adults’ ability to accurately estimate the
time they spend on individual SM platforms and that cognitive bleed may occur between
these online activities. These findings are consistent with those from previous studies
linking greater cycling between mobile applications to greater recall bias [
46
,
47
] and taken
together suggest that the phenomenon of misreporting time spent on SM may be a broader
issue associated with multi-tasking on electronic devices.
4.1. Implications for Researchers Studying Social Media Use among Adolescents
This study was designed to closely map onto the self-report validity concerns of
researchers increasingly interested in the degree to which cross-device time on one or
more popular SM platforms is associated with the well-being or health behavior among
adolescents. Findings suggest that self-report validity concerns in this literature are very
much warranted as inaccuracies in self-reported SM time were found to be systematically
related to the specific SM platform in question, participant sex, and the number of SM
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022,19, 9847 11 of 15
platforms used regularly by participants. These findings are concerning as such systematic
biases may obscure the true relationships between variables. For instance, the larger project
from which the current investigation was derived examined prospective relationships
between daily time on the four SM platforms during the transition into college in relation
to subsequent perceptions of peer drinking norms and drinking behavior later in the school
year. When objective data were used in analyses, as planned, the theorized model was fully
supported [
48
]. However, when the model was re-run using self-report survey data from
the same participants several key linkages were no longer supported (results available upon
request) presumably due to the noise created by the reporting biases identified in the present
study. Underscoring the importance of objective assessment in the SM use domain, reliance
on only self-report measures would have led to the incorrect conclusion that daily SM time
is not a predictor of drinking over the first year of college. Fortunately, compared to Junco’s
initial study [
18
], where less than half of the participants who completed the baseline
assessment installed the time-tracking software on their computers, the current sample
was easily recruited despite the multi-device objective time-tracking requirements and no
participants withdrew from the study due to this or other SM privacy invasive aspects [
21
].
This suggests that SM privacy concerns among youth may have faded considerably since
2013 and should encourage researchers to find cost-effective ways to objectively track SM
platform time across adolescents’ electronic devices.
Although supporting a shift toward objective SM time tracking methods, findings
also carry implications for researchers limited to the use of self-report measures. That is, a
greater understanding of the demographic, personality, and social identity characteristics
systematically related to over-reporting SM time may help researchers for whom an objec-
tive assessment is not possible to reduce or account for such reporting biases. For example,
findings suggest that the accuracy of self-report is higher on SM platforms used less heavily
(e.g., Facebook, Twitter). Thus, researchers limited to self-report may prefer to investigate
time on these platforms. Alternatively, rather than ask multiple choice or free response
questions about daily or weekly time on SM platforms prone to systematic reporting bias,
it may be optimal for researchers limited by survey-based assessments to adopt validated,
psychometrically sound scales to assess SM addiction or problematic SM use [
49
,
50
] in
efforts to study correlates of excessive use. However, for survey researchers who need
to assess daily time using a specific popular SM platform rather than SM addiction or
problematic use, findings from this study suggest that it may be useful to query partici-
pants about their time on various SM rather than only ask questions about the particular
SM platform of interest. Although more research is needed, it may be possible to reduce
reporting-related noise in relationships of interest in the analysis stage through advanced
statistical techniques to the extent that associated participant-level data (i.e., sex, number of
SM platforms used, and time on other SM platforms) is available.
4.2. Limitations and Future Directions
This study is limited in that data came from a sample of incoming first-year students
from a single American university. However, the sample size exceeded those utilized
in previous studies [
15
,
18
], and self-reported daily SM platform use patterns mapped
onto national survey data from American 18–24-year-olds [
32
,
49
], suggesting that findings
may generalize to older American adolescents beyond the current sample. However,
it is unknown whether the similar patterns of daily use and systematic reporting biases
generalize to younger adolescents or adolescents outside of the United States. An additional
limitation was related to the RescueTime software application used in this study not
being compatible with iPhones. This resulted in iPhone users being required to complete
additional steps to ensure that the time they spent actively using the four SM platforms from
their phones during the surveillance period could be combined with the data from their
other electronic devices. To avoid such an extra burden among a subset of participants, it
will be important for future research to develop and utilize cross-device software programs
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022,19, 9847 12 of 15
able to track participants’ SM use more seamlessly across all versions of IOS, Android, and
Windows-based operating systems.
Another potential limitation is that participants’ awareness of the software installed
on their electronic devices may have impacted their patterns of SM use to some unknown
degree. However, data were collected within a larger multi-component project which
likely worked against the potential for any such software impact. That is, participants
were invited to take part in a 9-month study investigating the potential psychological
impacts of what they see on SM during the transition into college. Informed consent
information framed the collection of this study’s data in the context of the larger project’s
broader research questions (e.g., “does seeing a lot of posts about partying or studying
on SM influence your perceptions of how much college students really party or study?”).
Although participants installed the tracking software and reported on their SM use in one
of five surveys, in the service of the larger project they also provided their SM account
logins so a bot could periodically sample the posts in their social media feeds, and were
repeatedly surveyed about their normative perceptions, and completed multiple implicit
association tests. Participants were also encouraged to use social media as usual during the
study period and the research team’s secondary interest in their reporting accuracy was
not disclosed. Although participants’ patterns of SM use and the discrepancies observed
between objectively tracked and self-reported time seem unlikely to be an artifact of the
time-tracking software or broader study participation, additional attention to this issue is
warranted.
A final limitation is that the study did not objectively assess participants’ time spent on
every SM platform currently available (e.g., TikTok, YouTube, etc.), and instead narrowed
its focus to the four platforms most widely used by American adolescents at the time
of data collection and commonly studied in relation to well-being and health behavior
outcomes. Although more research is needed, this study’s findings suggest that expanding
focus to a larger number of popular SM platforms may lead to even greater reporting
inaccuracies among adolescents swinging a greater number of platforms, with these inaccu-
racies potentially further obscuring true relationships between time on SM, well-being, and
health behavior. Thus, examining self-report inaccuracies on additional SM platforms and
evaluating potential correlates such as culture, social identity, perceived in-group norms
for platform use, and other SM variables (e.g., motivations for use, passive lurking versus
active sharing or interaction) represent important directions for future research that may
provide researchers investigating SM use among adolescents additional insight into survey
question optimization and illuminate novel methods to reduce bias in self-report data.
5. Conclusions
Despite public health researchers’ tendency to assess adolescent social media behavior
via self-report survey questions, findings from this study reveal that many adolescent
participants are unable to accurately report the SM platforms they used over the previous
2 weeks, and that, on average, adolescents also substantially over-estimate the average
daily time they spend on individual SM platforms over this period of time. Further, the
accuracy of adolescents’ responses to questions about average daily use appears to be
systematically associated with the specific social media platforms in question, as well as the
participant’s sex and the total number of social media platforms they use regularly, thereby
biasing the results of survey-based studies investigating health-related correlates of SM
use. As understanding adolescent patterns of SM use and psychosocial and behavioral
correlates represent critical areas of inquiry that may inform the development of new public
health intervention and prevention programs, the validity of social media assessments
must improve.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022,19, 9847 13 of 15
Author Contributions:
S.C.B. is responsible for the study’s conceptualization, methodology, formal
analysis, and the majority of the writing. S.B. assisted with the literature review and references.
Review of the writing, including editing and comments, were provided by B.M.T. and J.W.L. J.W.L.
also supervised the study’s data collection and acquired the funding for the larger project. All authors
have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding:
This research was funded by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
(NIAAA), grant number R21 AA024853. The NIAAA had no role in the study design, collection,
analysis, interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper
for publication.
Institutional Review Board Statement:
The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration
of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Loyola Marymount University
(protocol number LMU IRB 2017 SP 60 approved on 25 May 2017).
Informed Consent Statement:
Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.
Data Availability Statement:
Deidentified study data is available upon request from the correspond-
ing author (email: sarah.boyle@lmu.edu).
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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