Adolescents’ Activity on Social Networks and Their Well-being

Abstract

In this research adolescents’ leisure activities were investigated in the context of positive youth development. The sample included 1358 secondary school students, first and third grade (56% girls). This work concerns activity on different social networks, precisely following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, You Tube, Viber, WhatsApp, Skype, and Snapchat. Among other questions in applied questionnaire about leisure activities, students estimated how active they are on mentioned networks (scale 1-6) and answered about their well-being on the EPOCH scale (scale 1-5). The EPOCH scale includes 20 items, 4 for each of the following aspects: Engagement, Perseverance, Optimism, Connectedness and Happiness. The aim of this work is to investigate if there are correlations between the activity of adolescents on certain social networks and 5 aspects of well-being. The results show that adolescents who are more active on social networks have higher scores on well-being in general (r=.170, p<.01) while Instagram, Viber and WhatsApp explain most of the variance. Higher activity on social networks is also positively connected to all particular aspects of well-being separately. Certain highest correlations, among others, between activity on specific networks and well-being aspects are established (p<.01, for all): a) Facebook and: Perseverance (r=.072), Happiness (r=.098); b) Instagram and: Optimism (r=.118), Connectedness (r=.246), Happiness (r=.176); c) Twitter and: Engagement (r=.080); d) You Tube and: Engagement (r=.076), e) Viber and: Perseverance (r=.124), Connectedness (r=.127), Happiness (r=.131); f) WhatsApp and: Perseverance (r=.074), Optimism(r=.074), Connectedness (r=.149), Happiness (r=.110); g) Skype and: Engagement (r=.079); h) Snapchat and: Connectedness (r=.155), Happiness (r=.082). Higher activity on social networks is positively connected to well-being of adolescents. Instagram, Viber and WhatsApp are the most significant contributors, and with Snapchat they are connected with optimism, hopefulness, and life and relationships satisfaction. On the other side, Twitter, You Tube, and Skype require higher engagement and focus on what one is doing. Hence, we can further consider two types of social networks, according to their developmental potential, predominantly towards communication or interest in life activities and tasks. For further research, Messenger and Facebook, as well as Direct Messages and Instagram, that include both mentioned types, should be separated.