Problematic social media use is linked to how feelings of freedom relate to mental health

A recent study published in the journal Psychology of Popular Media suggests that problematic social media use alters how our feelings of personal and national freedom relate to our mental health. The findings indicate that while feeling free generally supports better psychological well-being, unhealthy attachments to social media tend to weaken the benefits of personal freedom but strengthen the positive effects of national pride.

Psychologists generally agree that feeling free is linked to better mental health. The concept of freedom in psychology is broad. It involves explicit feelings of personal liberty alongside feeling a sense of belonging to a community. It also involves perceiving that the world treats you fairly and feeling that you have enough financial wealth to meet your needs and desires.

When people feel they have these resources and liberties compared to others around them, they generally report fewer mental health struggles. The researchers wanted to see how the modern digital landscape fits into this established psychological picture. Social media provides vast tools for connection, but an unhealthy reliance on these platforms introduces complicated new challenges for human well-being.

Cameron J. Bunker, an assistant professor of media psychology at the School of Communication at Emerson College, led the research team. “I am a social scientist who examines media and self-perception,” Bunker said. “I am broadly interested in how media use like social media and use of AI influence how people see themselves (and vice versa).”

Bunker explained that the study specifically targeted feelings of autonomy. “In this project, I wanted to focus on perceptions of freedom,” Bunker noted. “Some have suggested that social media use may make some people feel constrained (e.g., less able to express themselves the way they want to, or treated less fairly).”

To explore this idea, the researchers conducted a study involving large groups of people from both the United States and Germany. They recruited a total of 2,036 adult participants through an independent research firm in the fall of 2022. The American sample included 1,007 individuals, and the German sample included 1,029 individuals.

These participants were selected to accurately reflect the general population in terms of age, gender, and geographic region within their respective countries. The scientists chose these two nations because they both rank highly on global measures of individualism. Individualism is a cultural trait that places a strong emphasis on personal independence, making freedom a particularly important concept for mental health in these regions.

The participants completed a series of questionnaires designed to measure their perceptions of freedom, social media habits, and mental health. To gauge freedom, the researchers asked participants to rate how free they felt on a 100-point scale. They assessed four specific areas, which included a general sense of personal freedom, a feeling of belonging or social connection, a sense of being treated fairly, and a feeling of financial wealth.

Participants rated these four factors in two different ways. First, they compared themselves to other individuals within their own country. Second, they compared their home country as a whole to other nations around the world.

Next, the researchers measured social media behaviors using a widely accepted psychological questionnaire. This tool asks users how often they feel preoccupied with social media, use it to escape negative feelings, or experience distress when they cannot access their accounts. Finally, the scientists assessed the mental well-being of the participants by looking at both positive and negative psychological indicators.

They measured negative mental health symptoms by asking participants how often they experienced feelings of depression, anxiety, and stress. They also measured positive mental health indicators, asking participants to rate their overall life satisfaction and general happiness. Statistical analyses showed that the four types of freedom blended together into a single overall score for personal freedom and another combined score for national freedom.

When they analyzed the data, the researchers found that unhealthy social media use significantly altered the relationship between these freedom scores and mental health. For personal perceptions of freedom, social media obsession tended to dampen the usual psychological benefits. Generally, people who felt highly free in their personal lives reported fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression.

But for those who also exhibited high levels of problematic social media use, this protective mental health effect was noticeably weaker. The scientists suggest that heavy, uncontrollable social media use might introduce new digital stressors that interrupt the peace of mind normally provided by a sense of personal freedom.

“People who feel free (e.g., treated fairly or feel like they belong within their social environment) tend to have better mental health,” Bunker told PsyPost. “Prior research has established this. In this study, my collaborators and I found that in a cross-cultural sample of over 2000 people, perceptions of freedom may not relate as positively to mental health among those who show problematic patterns of social media use (e.g., feel like they can’t cut down on their use despite trying).”

Bunker emphasized the importance of this digital context. “[I]t is important to consider how people’s perceptions of freedom are embedded in a digital world with social media platforms,” he said.

A different pattern emerged when the researchers looked at how people viewed their countries. For perceptions of national freedom, problematic social media use actually strengthened the link to positive mental health. People who believed their country was exceptionally free, fair, and wealthy compared to the rest of the world reported higher overall happiness.

The scientists noticed this effect was particularly prominent among the American participants. “We actually found the opposite effect when focusing on Americans’ (but not Germans’) perceptions of freedom when the country was the target instead of the self,” Bunker said. “That is, how free Americans thought their country was showed a correlation with better mental health more so for those who show problematic social media use.”

Bunker offered a potential reason for this specific national trend. “One interpretation of these exceptions is that those who use social media problematically in the United States may be more prone to nationalistic beliefs (seeing their country as freer than other countries and feeling better overall in relation to it),” Bunker said.

While the study provides new insights, it has a few limitations. The research relied on data collected at a single point in time, meaning it cannot prove cause and effect. It is possible that unhealthy social media use diminishes the mental health benefits of freedom, but the reverse could also be true.

“The findings in the present study were correlational, so we cannot make causal conclusions,” Bunker noted. “For example, we cannot conclude that problematic social media use causes worse links between perceptions of freedom and mental health (or vice versa).”

Bunker also highlighted a shift in how psychologists describe these digital behaviors. “I now use the term ‘problematic use’ instead of ‘addictive use’,” Bunker explained. “My thoughts have changed on this label since publication. There is emerging research suggesting that most social media users are not actually ‘addicted’ to social media use and such patterns, like those measured in the present study, might be more precisely labeled as ‘problematic.’”

Finally, the study focused entirely on individuals living in the United States and Germany. Because both nations are highly individualistic, the results might not apply to people living in collectivist cultures. People in those societies might use social media differently and derive their sense of freedom from entirely different social sources.

Looking ahead, Bunker plans to continue investigating how modern technology shapes human identity. “I am currently examining how AI algorithms may play a constraining role in people’s self-concepts,” he said.

The study, “Social Media Addiction Moderates Links Between Perceptions of Freedom and Mental Health in the United States and Germany,” was authored by Cameron J. Bunker, Jürgen Margraf, and Julia Brailovskaia.