Abstract. We know little about longitudinal associations between social media use and important psychological variables such as self-esteem. Using experience sampling methodology, this study examined the relationship between social media use and self-esteem in a new and ecologically valid way. Participants ( N = 200) responded to notifications sent to their smartphones several times a day for 2 weeks and reported social media use as well as current self-esteem. Multilevel analyses revealed distinct gendered patterns: Low initial self-esteem among women predicted more frequent social media use, whereas low initial self-esteem among men was related to less frequent social media use. Moreover, recent social media use predicted lower current self-esteem for women, but not for men. Low stability of self-esteem was related to more social media use, independent of gender. The findings support the notion of a reciprocal relationship between social media use and self-esteem for women, where self-esteem level may motivate women to use social media more frequently and social media may be a source of lower self-esteem. Social media use seems to have a less detrimental effect on men.

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社交媒体使用与自尊关系的经验抽样研究

摘要。我们对社交媒体使用与自尊等重要心理变量之间的纵向关联知之甚少。本研究使用经验抽样方法，以一种新的、生态有效的方式检验了社交媒体使用与自尊之间的关系。参与者 (N = 200) 在 2 周内每天多次回复发送到他们智能手机的通知，并报告了社交媒体的使用情况以及当前的自尊。多层次分析揭示了不同的性别模式：女性初始自尊心低预示着更频繁地使用社交媒体，而男性初始自尊心低与社交媒体使用频率较低有关。此外，最近的社交媒体使用预测女性当前的自尊心较低，但男性则不然。自尊的低稳定性与更多的社交媒体使用有关，与性别无关。研究结果支持社交媒体使用与女性自尊之间互惠关系的概念，其中自尊水平可能会促使女性更频繁地使用社交媒体，而社交媒体可能是自尊心较低的来源。社交媒体的使用似乎对男性的不利影响较小。