Unraveling the Role of Social Media on Adolescents’ Daily Goals and Affect: The Interplay Between Basic Psychological Needs and Screen Time

Abstract Despite the common belief that spending excessive time on social media apps harms adolescents' daily functioning, the impact of screen time is likely to differ depending on how well the use of social media aligns with adolescents' psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Grounded in self-determination theory, the aim of this study was to examine how both screen time and basic psychological needs on social media relate to adolescents’ daily goal striving and affective states. To this end, a 7-day diary study was conducted, and screen time (i.e. duration and frequency) was monitored objectively through an application on adolescents’ smartphones. In two daily surveys, participants reported on their basic psychological needs (i.e. satisfaction and frustration of the needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness) when spending time on social media, their experienced goal interference (i.e. guilt, goal conflict and rumination) and their affective states (i.e. positive and negative affect). Examining the data of 107 adolescents (M age = 15.28 years, SD = 1.66, range = 12–19; 53.3% female), multilevel path analyses revealed that, at the daily level, frustration of the basic psychological needs on social media was associated with temporary increases in guilt, goal conflict and negative affect. On the contrary, when adolescents felt satisfied with their needs during their time on social media, they reported better affective states. The duration of screen time also yielded an interfering effect (i.e. main effect), but this effect was attenuated when adolescents experienced high need satisfaction during their time on social media (i.e. interaction effect). Some lingering effects were found, with need satisfaction on SMU in the afternoon predicting lower guilt and goal conflict and need frustration on SMU relating to elevated rumination in the evening. These findings highlight the complex interplay between basic psychological needs on SMU and screen time for adolescents’ daily goal striving and affective well-being.