SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE, NEGATIVE MOOD REGULATION EXPECTANCIES, AND EMOTIONAL OUTCOMES

Using social media has been linked to negative emotional outcomes. Yet not all studies find that social media damages users’ mental health. It is possible that a moderating variable that interacts with social media usage may influence negative emotional outcomes. Negative mood regulation expectancies (NMRE), the belief a person has about their ability to cope with their negative moods, moderate relationships of stressors with negative emotional outcomes. This study examined NMRE as a potential moderator of the relationships of social media usage with depression, anxiety, and loneliness.

Adults 18-29 years old (N = 459) who used social media platforms were surveyed online. After accounting for variance explained by demographic variables, simultaneous multiple regression results showed that NMRE moderated social media usage’s relationships with anxiety and loneliness, but not with depression. The moderation was greater for loneliness than for anxiety. Among the high NMRE group, those with the lowest social media usage had the least loneliness. High NMRE enhanced social media usage’s relationship with loneliness, rather than buffering the relationship. 

Results imply that a clinical intervention to treat highly lonely clients engaged with social media should increase their confidence about coping with negative moods. One shortcoming of this research was measuring usage with the Social Media Use Integration Scale (SMUIS). Social media research will be hampered until a universally agreed upon construct of usage is developed with a valid measure.