Adolescents’ Social Comparison on Social Media: Links with Momentary Self-Evaluations

Abstract

Adolescents are developmentally motivated to engage in social comparisons, and social media platforms provide abundant social information that facilitate comparisons. Despite the potential to trigger immediate emotional responses, little research has examined the day-to-day naturalistic occurrence of these comparisons and coinciding effects. Across fourteen days, 94 adolescents (51% female, M_age = 16.47) reported how their life compared to others’ lives on social media three times per day. Lateral comparisons were far more common than upward or downward comparisons and were not consistently correlated with self-evaluations (self-esteem, social connectedness, appearance satisfaction). Overall depressive symptoms was a risk factor for engaging in upward comparisons. When adolescents reported engaging in upward (relative to downward) comparisons at a given time point, they reported poorer self-esteem. When adolescents reported engaging in downward (relative to lateral) comparisons at a given time point, they reported greater self-esteem. Although rare, directional comparisons have in-the-moment associations with self-evaluations.