Are Aspects of Twitter Use Associated with Reduced Depressive Symptoms? The Moderating Role of In-Person Social Support

Abstract

In a two-wave, 4-month longitudinal study of 308 adults, two hypotheses were tested regarding the relation of Twitter-based measures of online social media use and in-person social support with depressive thoughts and symptoms. For four of five measures, Twitter use by in-person social support interactions predicted residualized change in depression-related outcomes over time; these results supported a corollary of the social compensation hypothesis that social media use is associated with greater benefits for people with lower in-person social support. In particular, having a larger Twitter social network (i.e., following and being followed by more people) and being more active in that network (i.e., sending and receiving more tweets) are especially helpful to people who have lower levels of in-person social support. For the fifth measure (the sentiment of Tweets), no interaction emerged; however, a beneficial main effect offset the adverse main effect of low in-person social support.

Keywords: Twitter; depression; rich-get-richer; social compensation; social media; social support.

FIG. 1.

Main effects and interactions of Twitter use and in-person SS on residualized change in depressive thoughts and symptoms (depressive change) over time. DEP, mean of standardized Cognitive Triad Inventory and Beck Depression Inventory-II; SS, social support.