ArticleCommunications psychology2024
Twitter (X) use predicts substantial changes in well-being, polarization, sense of belonging, and outrage.
Article in Communications psychology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Influence of digital social networking platforms on mental health and social media addiction.Discover mental health · 2026Article
- A computational model of reward learning and habits on social media.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Problematic social media use among recreational cannabis users in Québec: A Cross-Sectional study.Addictive behaviors reports · 2026Article
- Stillbirth Discourse on Instagram and X (Formerly Twitter): Content Analysis.JMIR infodemiology · 2025Article
- Message source effects on rejection and costly punishment of criticism across cultures.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- Effects of COVID-19 related social media use on well-being.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Understanding user perceptions of DeepSeek: insights from sentiment, topic and network analysis using a Reddit-based study.Frontiers in artificial intelligence · 2025Article
- People are increasingly bored in our digital age.Communications psychology · 2024Review
- Social Drivers and Algorithmic Mechanisms on Digital Media.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2024Review
- Negative expressions are shared more on Twitter for public figures than for ordinary users.PNAS nexus · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In public debate, Twitter (now X) is often said to cause detrimental effects on users and society. Here we address this research question by querying 252 participants from a representative sample of U.S. Twitter users 5 times per day over 7 days (6,218 observations). Results revealed that Twitter use is related to decreases in well-being, and increases in political polarization, outrage, and sense of belonging over the course of the following 30 minutes. Effect sizes were comparable to the effect of social interactions on well-being. These effects remained consistent even when accounting for demographic and personality traits. Different inferred uses of Twitter were linked to different outcomes: passive usage was associated with lower well-being, social usage with a higher sense of belonging, and information-seeking usage with increased outrage and most effects were driven by within-person changes.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.