SaTC: CORE: Medium: Testing the causal influence of social media on well-being and animosity

A recurring question of scientists, policy makers, and the public is how online social media use is affecting the welfare of people and society. This project examines the global influence of social media on individuals’ well-being and social attitudes. The project aims to extend well beyond trends in specific countries. The research team is conducting a global field experiment across multiple countries to test the causal impact of social media. The experiment provides incentives to a large sample of people to temporarily reduce their usage of their social media platforms for two weeks. The project team is studying how this social media reduction influences a number of important variables, such as personal well-being and out-group animosity, as compared with changes in a control sample. This project involves multiple collaborators across the globe to translate survey items, aid in sample selection, and help administer the experiment. In addition to analyses of the main effects of the experimental treatment, the project is investigating whether the effects of social media reduction are moderated by a number of country-level variables such as the country’s democratic strength. The dataset produced by this project will be made publicly available to researchers, to allow for numerous secondary papers and alternative analyses. This project will contribute rigorous empirical evidence to important debates about how social media is influencing societies around the world, including out-group animosity and well-being among their citizens. It will inform theoretical accounts of how social media impacts people in different cultural or political contexts, and also inform practical solutions for improving social media and the impact it has on society. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.