Maartje Boer

CHAPTER 8 234 (Verduyn et al., 2017). Presumably, active SMU enhances one’s social network, which may increase social capital and feelings of connectedness. Conversely, because people tend to present themselves in an overly appealing way on social media, passive SMU implicates exposure to unrealistically flattering portrayals of others. This exposure may induce feelings of envy or upward social comparisons, such as the perception that others are more successful (Verduyn et al., 2017). The proposition that particularly passive SMU is detrimental to wellbeing has received empirical support. A meta-analysis showed that passive SMU was negatively associated with indicators of wellbeing, whereas active SMU was positively associated with wellbeing, albeit both with small effect sizes (Liu et al., 2019). Recent experience sampling studies with multiple daily assessments challenge these results (Beyens, Pouwels, Valkenburg, et al., 2020; Beyens, Pouwels, Van Driel, et al., 2020; Jensen et al., 2019). Particularly, one study found that, on average, moments when adolescents had used InstagramorWhatsApp passivelywere associatedwithmoments of increased affective wellbeing. In contrast, moments of active use of Instagram or WhatsApp were not associated with changes in wellbeing (Beyens, Pouwels, Valkenburg, et al., 2020). Another study found that, on days when adolescents showed increased levels of passive SMU or active SMU, adolescents did not report daily changes in depression or worries (Jensen et al., 2019). Similarly, a study that distinguished between the intensity of passive public (i.e., viewing posts or stories of others), passive private (i.e., reading direct messages), and active private (i.e., sending direct messages) SMU showed that, on average, neither of the three SMU activities predicted immediate changes in wellbeing (Beyens, Pouwels, Van Driel, et al., 2020). Overall, while meta-analytic results suggest that passive SMU is detrimental, and that active SMU is beneficial to wellbeing, recent studies using intensive daily measurements question the robustness of this finding. The Association Between SMU Intensity and Wellbeing May or May Not Be Linear According to the ‘Goldilocks hypothesis’, the association between adolescents’ SMU intensity andwellbeing is curvilinear (Dienlin& Johannes, 2020; Przybylski & Weinstein, 2017). Specifically, in contemporary society where (social) media