Associations Between Emotions, Social Media Use, and Sun Exposure Among Young Women: Ecological Momentary Assessment Study

Abstract

Background Research has pointed to a connection between social media use, emotions, and tanning behaviors. However, less is known about the role specific emotions may play in influencing social media use and how emotions and social media use may each be associated with outdoor tanning. Objective This paper aims to examine the connection between emotions, social media use, and outdoor tanning behaviors among young women, a group particularly important for skin cancer prevention efforts. Methods We used ecological momentary assessment to collect data from 197 women aged 18 to 25 years 3 times a day for 7 days in July 2018. We collected data from women in 2 states. Results We found that boredom was associated with increased time spent on social media and that increased time spent on social media was associated with increased time spent outdoors without sun protection. Conclusions Our results highlight that social media may be a particularly important channel for skin cancer prevention efforts targeting young women, as more social media use was associated with increased time spent outdoors with skin exposed. Researchers should consider the role of emotions in motivating social media use and subsequent tanning behaviors. Additionally, as boredom was associated with social media use, intervention developers would benefit from developing digital and social media interventions that entertain as well as educate.

The Social Media Use Scale: Development and Validation

“…There is additionally a dearth of research on how individuals’ use of SM prospectively predicts their emotion. The few studies that exist have yielded inconsistent findings, with some finding associations between SMU and momentary positive emotion (Lin & Utz, 2015) and others with momentary negative emotion (e.g., Willoughby et al, 2020). We propose that these mixed findings may be explained, at least in part, by the ways in which individuals use SM.…”

Types of social media use are differentially associated with trait and momentary affect.

“…To date, only a few studies have assessed the influence of SMU on momentary emotion, and they have also yielded inconsistent findings. For instance, laboratory-based studies have found that using SM, compared to using other websites, predicts low levels of positive affect (PA) and high levels of NA (Fardouly et al, 2015; Yuen et al, 2019), and SMU predicts increases in momentary NA (Berry et al, 2018; Willoughby et al, 2020), suggesting SMU has contrahedonic impacts on momentary emotion. However, in an experience sampling study, SMU engagement was contemporaneously associated with diminished levels of NA (Yin et al, 2022), suggesting SMU has hedonic impacts on momentary emotion in everyday life contexts.…”