Social Media Use and Wellbeing: A Look at University Freshman

This study investigates the impact that social media use has on the emotional wellbeing and social connectedness of University of Arizona freshmen. Over 200 current students were given a survey assessing related measures, and the results were compared to data collected from University freshmen in 1997. These results clearly show that following the introduction of social media, there has been a significant decrease in both emotional wellbeing and number of confidants that Arizona freshmen have. While causal order cannot be ascertained through survey data, the results do call for future exploration into the overall effects of social media on the emotional and social health of its college-age users. Contemporaneous analyses examining freshmen students within the current University of Arizona freshmen population failed to produce any significant differences in either emotional or social health based on level of social media use. However, the lack of significant difference in contemporaneous results combined with significant longitudinal changes in wellbeing calls into question some of the aims of social media and adds additional evidence to the canon of general social media research