Twitter (X) use predicts substantial changes in well-being, polarization, sense of belonging, and outrage

This paper from Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello, Felix Cheung, and Michael Inzlicht has been published in Communications Psychology. The abstract says:

“In public debate, Twitter (now X) is often said to cause detrimental effects on users and society. Here we address this research question by querying 252 participants from a representative sample of U.S. Twitter users 5 times per day over 7 days (6,218 observations).

Results revealed that Twitter use is related to decreases in well-being, and increases in political polarization, outrage, and sense of belonging over the course of the following 30 minutes. Effect sizes were comparable to the effect of social interactions on well-being. These effects remained consistent even when accounting for demographic and personality traits.

Different inferred uses of Twitter were linked to different outcomes: passive usage was associated with lower well-being, social usage with a higher sense of belonging, and information-seeking usage with increased outrage and most effects were driven by within-person changes.”

You can read the paper from here.

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