Is there any 'Facebook depression'? Exploring the moderating roles of neuroticism, Facebook social comparison and envy

Abstract

Mixed results have been found regarding the relationship between social media use and depressive symptoms. This study aims to explore the moderating roles of neuroticism, envy and Facebook social comparison in the relationship between Facebook usage and depressive symptoms. A sample of 282 participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. They completed a battery of online questionnaires including measures of neuroticism, Facebook use, Facebook social comparison, envy and depressive symptoms. In the present study, the correlation between Facebook use and depressive symptoms was not statistically significant. Nevertheless, we found a significant interactive effect between time spent on Facebook and neuroticism. The positive association between time spent on Facebook and depressive symptoms was only found among those high in neuroticism but not among those low in neuroticism. Facebook social comparison and envy did not significantly moderate the effect of time spent on Facebook on depressive symptoms. Potential explanations and implications of the results were discussed.