University of Twente Student Theses
Instagram use and depressive symptoms among young adults : exploring the moderation effect of mindfulness
Tiltmann, V. (2022) Instagram use and depressive symptoms among young adults : exploring the moderation effect of mindfulness.
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| Abstract: | Social media has become increasingly important and recently the social media platform Instagram took the lead when it comes to the most used social media application among young adults. Not only has Instagram usage increased in the past years but also the number of people with depression or depressive symptoms rises constantly. One concept which was found to positively influence mental health issues such as depression is mindfulness. Since Instagram is a rather novel and therefore vastly understudied social media platform, only little is known about the effects Instagram may have on its users' depressive symptoms with regard to the moderating role of mindfulness. Therefore, this study filled in this gap in the literature by examining the moderating effect of mindfulness on the relationship between time spent on Instagram (IT) and depressive symptoms. A weak positive significant correlation was found between IT and depressive symptoms. However, no moderating effect of mindfulness on the relationship between IT and depressive symptoms was found. A significant main effect of mindfulness on depressive symptoms was observed, but no significant effect of IT on depressive symptoms was found, which is not in line with the found correlation. A possible explanation is that the relationship between IT and depressive symptoms might be in the reverse as expected, meaning that people who display more depressive symptoms tend to spend more time on Instagram. Additionally, measuring Instagram use solely in terms of time spent on Instagram is not concrete enough and one should distinguish between active and passive use or even several concrete actions such as liking or posting behaviour in future research. |
| 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/91304 |
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