ArticleJournal of social and personal relationships2022
Divergent effects of social media use on meaning in life via loneliness and existential isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.
Article in Journal of social and personal relationships, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Romeo swipes Juliet left!? Problematic online dating app use and problematic pornography consumption are associated with a weaker sense of existential meaning in romantic love.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Association between problematic TikTok use and mental health: A systematic review and meta-analysis.AIMS public health · 2025Review
- Exploring meaning in life from social network content in the sleep scenario.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Scrolling for support: informational, emotional, and social support in adult ADHD Facebook groups.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Exploring digital interaction and positive youth development in a sample of Spanish undergraduates.AIMS public health · 2025Article
- The role of meaning in life in the association between loneliness and depression: a mediation study among older adults from 26 European countries.The Psychiatric quarterly · 2024Article
- Sense of loneliness and meaning in life in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients. Preliminary studies.Multidisciplinary respiratory medicine · 2024Article
- Support from Social Media during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Gender differences in the relationships between meaning in life, mental health status and digital media use during Covid-19.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Associations between social media use and loneliness in a cross-national population: do motives for social media use matter?Health psychology and behavioral medicine · 2023Article
- Social Media Use and Well-being With Bipolar Disorder During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Path Analysis.JMIR formative research · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Stay-at-home orders issued to combat the growing number of infections during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 had many psychological consequences for people including elevated stress, anxiety, and difficulty maintaining meaning in their lives. The present studies utilized cross-sectional designs and were conducted to better understand how social media usage related to people's subjective isolation (i.e., social loneliness, emotional loneliness, and existential isolation) and meaning in life (MIL) during the early months of the pandemic within the United States. Study 1 found that general social media use indirectly predicted higher MIL via lower existential isolation and social isolation. Study 2 replicated these patterns and found that social media use also predicted lower MIL via higher emotional loneliness, and that the aforementioned effects occurred with active, but not passive, social media use. Findings suggest social media use may be a viable means to validate one's experiences (i.e., reduce existential isolation) during the pandemic but may also lead to intensified feelings concerning missing others (i.e., increased emotional loneliness). This research also helps to identify potential divergent effects of social media on MIL and helps to clarify the relationships among varying types of subjective isolation.
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