Associations of Active and Passive Social Media Use with Well-Being: Behavioural Insights From Smartphone Sensing

The relationship between social media and well-being has been investigated since the emergence of social media platforms such as Facebook. Given the diversity of behaviours on social media platforms, research has often differentiated between active and passive social media use, yet findings remain inconsistent. These inconsistencies may partly reflect limitations in capturing fine-grained social media behaviours and reliance on broad behavioural categories that encompass distinct activities. While retrospective self-report measures may struggle to capture such granular behaviours, smartphone sensing enables the measurement of social media behaviours in everyday life. Using smartphone sensing data and ecological momentary assessments from the Smartphone Sensing Panel Study (SSPS), we will examine active and passive social media use at the in-app level, distinguishing passive consumption from active behaviours based on in-app usage measures and keyboard events. We will use a multilevel model to investigate how active and passive social media use relate to daily well-being. In exploratory analyses, we will further examine the frequency and distribution of active social media behaviours and whether textual investment provides additional insight into the relationship between active behaviours and daily well-being.