Social Media Influences On Psychological Well-being Of Individuals Within Healthcare Institutions:The Role Of Social Comparison

The use of social media affects individuals as it is a suitable platform to compare themselves to one another.Comparing to one another,however,results in feelings that affect psychological wellbeing-especially for adolescents that are still developing their social identity.Both positive and negative effects result in changing their decision making and behaviour.This thesis explores the relationship of social media engagement and social comparison to psychological wellbeing for individuals that are currently in coercion situated in healthcare institutions in the Netherlands.Although research has been thoroughly done on social media engagement,social comparison,and psychological wellbeing,a lack of research is existent for the healthcare sector.Until today,there is no clear evidence in research on whether access to social networking sites,newspapers,and television should be restricted for individuals in healthcare institutions and therefore does not bring a solution to whether social media engagement is beneficial to positive progress during the treatment of these individuals.The social comparison theory proposed by Festinger(1954)is used as the base of this research paper to investigate the negative as well as the positive effects of social media use of various individuals within healthcare institutions.The positive and negative effects will be tested through social comparison-based emotions initiated by Smith(2000),and the impact on the individual’s psychological wellbeing.Regarding the negative effects,this research paper investigates whether social media use within healthcare institutions is a health policy and contrary if it is a policy that should be kept.The outcome of this research can report to policymakers concerning the discouragement or encouragement of whether social media should be restricted in healthcare institutions.The research design of this research was mainly executed by a self-constructed survey that measured observed variables that would indicate in the latent variables of social media engagement,psychological wellbeing,social comparison orientation and the four groups of social comparison-based emotions: UAE(optimism and inspiration),UCE(envy and depression),DAE(worry and sympathy),DCE(pride and schadenfreude).The data is gathered from various healthcare institutions situated in the Netherlands.Among the sample,136 respondents that access social networking sites regularly took part in this study.The survey was conducted in January and completed by February 2020.The main result of this paper indicates that an intense social media engagement results in the worsening of psychological wellbeing,and therefore implies that social media usage within healthcare institutions should be limited or restricted.However,this research used social comparison-based emotions as mediators that gave interesting findings: the results of the mediation analysis indicate an increase of UAE(optimism and inspiration),UCE(envy and depression),and DCE(pride and schadenfreude),while the psychological wellbeing remains negatively impacted.Therefore,we can conclude that social media engagement results in the worsening of psychological wellbeing and brings up feelings of envy,depression,pride,and schadenfreude.Even though the feelings of optimism and inspiration had an increase in the results as well,we can consider the overall result of negative feelings associated with social media use strongly impacted.Moreover,when adding social comparison orientation to the equation,we find statistically significant results that imply that the variable of social comparison orientation has a significant effect on psychological wellbeing.The main conclusion of this research implies that policymakers and managers employed at healthcare institutions should revise their policy within social media usage.As proven that social media usage increases negatively perceived feelings of envy,depression,and schadenfreude,it is advised that social media use should be restricted to benefit the individual’s progress to its treatment in the healthcare institution.