Maartje Boer

CHAPTER 8 236 Susceptibility to Media effects Model (DSMM), media effects depend on individuals’ susceptibility to media effects (Valkenburg & Peter, 2013). One characteristic that may make individuals more susceptible to media effects may be adolescents’ tendency to compare themselves to others, that is, their social comparison tendency. The ‘social comparison perspective’ posits that for adolescents who are sensitive to social comparison, exposure to others’ messages on social media leads to decreased wellbeing through feelings of envy (De Vries et al., 2018). According to the ‘emotional contagion perspective’, adolescents who do not have this sensitivity may take over the positive emotions they encounter on social media, which may lead to increased wellbeing (De Vries et al., 2018). It has been argued that this moderating effect occurs when adolescents engage in upward social comparison, that is, when they evaluate others as superior (Verduyn et al., 2020). Thus, SMU activities may negatively or positively affect wellbeing, depending on adolescents’ upward social comparison tendency. Recent experience sampling studies confirm that adolescents strongly differ in their susceptibility to SMU effects (Beyens, Pouwels, Valkenburg, et al., 2020; Beyens, Pouwels, Van Driel, et al., 2020; Valkenburg, Beyens, et al., 2021). For example, one study showed that momentary associations between adolescents’ intensity of passive and active SMU activities and affective wellbeing ranged from a moderate negative to a moderate positive association across adolescents (Beyens, Pouwels, Van Driel, et al., 2020). In an experimental study, adolescents with a strong social comparison tendency were negatively affected by exposure to positively framed Instagram posts. In contrast, adolescents who lacked this tendency were positively affected by exposure to such posts (De Vries et al., 2018). A cross-sectional study indicated that among adolescents with a low social comparison tendency, there was a negative association between their intensity of active Instagram use and their level of loneliness. However, among adolescents with a high social comparison tendency, no association between active Instagram use and loneliness was found (Yang, 2016). Overall, these studies suggest that the association between SMU activities and wellbeing depend on adolescents’ sensitivity for (upward) social comparison.