Being More Authentic On Social Media Could Improve Your Wellbeing

By Emily Reynolds

It’s become somewhat of a truism that you shouldn’t believe everything you see on social media. Where someone’s life looks perfect, we’re often reminded, there are probably a handful of problems silently situated away from the camera. Nobody’s life is as shiny, flawless, or enviable as it might appear in their carefully curated feed.

But presenting ourselves more authentically on social media — ditching those things we want to believe are true about ourselves in favour of those that are — could be good for our wellbeing, according to a new paper in Nature Communications by Erica R. Bailey from Columbia University and colleagues.

In the first study, the team looked at the data of 10,560 Facebook users who had completed both personality and life satisfaction assessments through the myPersonality app (the data was originally collected between 2007 and 2012 and made available for approved researchers to study, though the app has since been banned by Facebook for improper data protection). These assessments were then compared to predictions of personality from Facebook likes and from status updates, to give a measure of how “authentically” the users presented themselves on the platform.

There was a positive correlation between life satisfaction and authenticity — but no indication, however, of the direction of causality. In other words, it wasn’t clear whether authenticity led to greater wellbeing or vice-versa.

To furthe...

Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - November 10, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Emotion Facebook Social Source Type: blogs