Adolescents’ feelings of gratitude were associated with greater importance placed on meaningful social media conversations. Image credit: FreePik
By Lillian Seck
When the COVID-19 pandemic drastically reduced in-person interactions, many people, including teens, turned to social media as an alternative way to connect with peers. A study of U.S. high school students conducted before and during the COVID-19 pandemic found that using social media for meaningful conversations – rather than social media use in general – was associated with feelings of gratitude.
Researchers led by Anne Maheux of the Winston National Center surveyed 743 adolescents, ages thirteen to eighteen, at four time points: two before the COVID-19 pandemic (October 2019 and February 2020), and two during the COVID-19 pandemic (October 2020 and January 2021). The adolescents were asked about the frequency of their social media use and the importance they placed on using social media for direct, meaningful conversations with close friends. They also completed a questionnaire assessing their levels of gratitude.
First, the researchers discovered that changes over time in feelings of gratitude were linked to changes in the importance of social media for meaningful conversations. As the pandemic wore on, teens whose gratitude levels increased also reported increasing importance in using social media for meaningful conversations. Those whose gratitude levels declined over the pandemic reported declining importance of using social media for meaningful connections with friends. Changes in gratitude levels were not associated with changes in overall frequency of social media use.
The researchers also found that adolescents who reported higher levels of gratitude at a given time point later reported that social media was more important for meaningful conversations with close friends. In contrast, placing greater importance on social media for meaningful conversations was not associated with subsequent increases in gratitude. This suggests that gratitude motivates teens to use social media to connect with friends, but connecting over social media does not necessarily inspire gratitude.
This study shows that teens’ well-being, as measured by their sense of gratitude, can motivate specific social media use behaviors, such as seeking out meaningful conversations with peers. The study also highlights the importance of understanding how teens are using social media, as feeling grateful was only associated with having meaningful conversations over social media, and not social media use in general.
Considerations
The study was conducted with U.S. adolescents. Its results may not generalize to other populations.
Article reference
Maheux, A.J., Nesi, J., Galla, B.M., Roberts, S.R., & Choukas-Bradley, S. (2021). #Grateful: Longitudinal associations between adolescents’ social media use and gratitude during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 31(3), 734–747.