Stress – Not Not Communicating by Michael Rabby

By Tiffany Duran

As someone who struggles with anxiety, I often think about what could be causing my anxiety to occur and what behaviors to avoid that otherwise raise my anxiety levels. Most recommendations say avoid behaviors like drinking caffeine or being exposed to stressors. Recently there has been a high emphasis on decreasing social media use to decrease personal problems such as anxiety. However, current studies also show factors other than social media use that can increase these personal problems.

Photo by
Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz through Creative Commons License

Iannattone et. al surveyed 721 Italian students (466 girls and 250 boys) ranging from 6^th grade to 9^th grade,. looked to explore the link between 5 main concepts:

Boredom

Problematic social media use

Emotional dysregulation

Internalized problems (anxiety, depression)

External problems (substance use, rule-breaking-behavior)

They theorized that:

High emotional regulation difficulties were directly related to high levels of internalizing and externalizing problems, as well as to high levels of boredom and problematic social media use

High levels of boredom and problematic social media use predicted high levels of internalizing and externalizing problems

They found that those who had higher rates of emotional dysregulation were more likely to experience boredom, and those that experienced boredom were more likely to have problematic social media use and internal and external problems. They suspect that children use social media as a way of emotional regulation, as it offers immediate gratification and relief from negative affective states. Their findings suggest that those who have emotional regulation difficulties have a hard time handling boredom, which may lead to them using social media as a regulator. High emotional regulation difficulties give way to problematic social media use which may increase internal and external problems.

Acknowledging this connection between boredom, problematic social media use, and internal and external problems will help us understand the underlying reason behind personal problems such as anxiety. Recognizing our own emotional regulation difficulties may help explain the internal or external problems we experience. Instead of painting social media use as the bad guy causing all our problems, perhaps we should look more inward and take responsibility for our inability to properly handle our own emotions and behaviors, ulimately changing the approach to problems we face.

Iannattone, S., Mezzalira, S., Bottesi, G. et al. Emotion dysregulation and psychopathological symptoms in non-clinical adolescents: The mediating role of boredom and social media use. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health 18, 5 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-023-00700-0

By Briar Anderson

Today, about 65% of adults use social media. Inevitably, social media use has affected different aspects of life like parenting and dating. It connects people around the globe. Many people actually to turn to social media as a stress reliever, as it can provide perceptions of social support.

In a study of 201 adults with Facebook accounts by Denq, Denq, and Hsu, participants were put under two conditions, either stress inducing or not stress inducing. They were then given a 10-minute break on their own computers and allowed to do whatever they wanted. The survey additionally asked questions pertaining to:

How much stress they felt when certain events happened (e.g., “In the last month, how often have you felt nervous and stressed?”).
Frequency of social media usage (e.g., “How often on average do you ‘like’ someone’s photos or status updates per week?”).
Desirable and undesirable life events that range from common to uncommon of someone within the participant’s life. (e.g., if they knew someone who started a new job).
Support-seeking behavior on Facebook (e.g., “I tried to get emotional support from friends or relatives on Facebook”).
Individual’s perception of social support from family, friends, and significant others (e.g., “I get the emotional help and support I need from my family”).
Positive and negative mood affectivity (e.g., “inspired” or “hostile”).
Habits on Facebook (e.g., “I do without having to consciously remember”).
Urge to use Facebook (e.g., “If it were possible, I probably would use Facebook now”).
Feelings of sympathy and concern for others (e.g., “I would describe myself as a pretty softhearted person”).
Active or passive usage of Facebook during the 10-minute break (e.g., “did you see only the pictures without reading the text?”).
Importance of Facebook (e.g., “how important is your Facebook profile in regards to your happiness?”).

The results indicated that seeking social support may contribute to increased use of social media. Also, increased usage of social media is a gauge of both frequency and strength of inducing habitual behavior regardless of stress. However, the results do not reinforce that habit is a factor in predicting social media usage as a reaction to stress. It shows that a habit of using social media was a stronger indicator of social media usage than stress. This may occur because users with strong habits of using social media may use it regardless of being stressed or not.

This may not come as surprising to many who engage in social media. People naturally seek support from others during stressful times, and social media has become an easy, free, and useful place to do so. But, people’s natural inclination to use social media through both good and bad prevails. Social media is still such a new phenomenon; it will take a lot more time, learning and research to fully understand its effects when used as a stress relief or for social support, and if these harm or help.

Denq, B., Denq, W., & Hsu, W. (2019). Stress and Its Impact on Social Media Usage. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 49(2), 232–245. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047281618772076

Image by Geraint Rowland via Creative Commons