University of Twente Student Theses
Association Between Social Media Screen Time and Perceived Stress Moderated by the Personality Trait Neuroticism
Köster, Fiona (2024) Association Between Social Media Screen Time and Perceived Stress Moderated by the Personality Trait Neuroticism.
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| Abstract: | Background. Lately, social media and its various aspects of usage has become very prominent in the society and the life of individuals and therefore spend a lot of time on them. Research shows that the screen time the people spend on social media has an influence on their perceived stress (Wolfers & Utz, 2022). An important factor that seems to have an effect on this relationship is the personality trait of neuroticism (Bowden-Green et al., 2021). The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the different aspects of social media screen time (total, passive, connective) and perceived stress and to find out whether neuroticism moderates this relationship. Methods. The relationship between social media screen time, perceived stress and neuroticism was based on a cross-sectional survey investigated. (Under)graduate students (N=149) were asked to fill out a self-developed questionnaire for the total social media screen time, the SMAQ (Ozimek et al., 2023) for passive social media screen time, and the SNS (Orchard et al., 2014) for connective social media usage. Additionally, the perceived stress level was measured based on the results of the PSS (Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein, 1983) and their neuroticism level based on the questions concerning neuroticism of the MINI-IPIP (Goldberg, 1992). Results. The study showed that only the relationship between passive social media use and perceived stress is statistically significant positive (r(df) = .203, p = .0398). The other measured relationships and moderating effects were not statistically significant. However, results indicated that there is a strong direct relationship between neuroticism and perceived stress (b = 1.44, p<.001). Conclusion and Discussion. The correlation between passive but none of the other variables of social media use demonstrate the importance to investigate how individuals use social media. The remarkably strong positive effect of neuroticism on perceived stress emphasises the importance to consider personality traits when investigating perceived stress and social media use. Importantly, further investigation is needed if a validated and reliable measurement of social media screen time (total, passive and active) would lead to a different outcome. To expand this research, an experimental and longitudinal study design with the same structure as this study, might provide further insights. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 77 psychology |
| Programme: | Psychology BSc (56604) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/100561 |
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