Person-Specific Media Effects

Abstract

We recently introduced a new approach to study (social) media effects. Our approach challenges the findings of nomothetic media effects studies, which assume that the average effect sizes that they report generalise to all individuals in a (sub-)population. However, using idiographic methods of analysis (N = 1 time series analyses), we found striking differences in the person-specific effects of social media use on well-being, ranging from strongly negative (β = -.30) to strongly positive (β = .35). Moreover, for only a small minority of respondents, their effect sizes matched with the average effect size of social media use on well-being. Our results show that individuals react and develop in unique ways, and this uniqueness is not captured by approaches that rely on averages.