Conceptualizing and Measuring Social Media Use in Health and Well-being Studies: Systematic Review.
Mesfin Awoke BekaluTaisuke SatoKasisomayajula Vish ViswanathPublished in: Journal of medical Internet research (2023)
Most studies conceptualized social media use as a "normal" behavior and mostly used time-spent measures, whereas a considerable number of studies conceptualized social media use as an addiction and used various addiction measures. The studies disproportionately focused on investigating the associations of social media use with negative health and well-being outcomes. The findings suggest the need for going beyond time spent to more sophisticated measurement approaches that consider the multiplicity of activities that users perform on social media platforms and the need for more theory-based studies on the association of social media use with not only negative well-being or "ill-being" but also with positive health and well-being outcomes.