The relationship between social comparison and depressive symptoms among Indonesian Instagram users

DOI

10.2991/uipsur-17.2018.19How to use a DOI?

Keywords

depressive symptoms, Instagram, social comparison, social media

Abstract

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. In Indonesia, Instagram has more than 22 million monthly active users. However, its use may increase depressive symptoms due to negative social interaction, particularly social comparison. We hypothesized that social comparison was negatively correlated with depressive symptoms. Using an online questionnaire platform, 131 participants aged 18-28-year-old were recruited. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Center of Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) scale by Radloff (1977) and social comparison was measured with Social Comparison Rating Scale (Allan & Gillbert, 1995) adapted by Feinstein et al. (2013). A significant correlation between social comparison and depressive symptoms was found. Moreover, a significant correlation between percentage of strangers followed and social comparison was found, while the correlation between frequency of Instagram use and social comparison was not significant. These findings indicate that social comparison occurs in spite of various time spent in using Instagram and might occur more frequently with a higher number of strangers followed. Instagram users should become aware that Instagram could facilitate negative social comparison which may result in depressive symptoms, so they should use Instagram cautiously.

Copyright

© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Las Asimi Lumban Gaol
AU  - Amira Budi Mutiara
AU  - Nimas Linggar Saraswati
AU  - Rizqika Rahmadini
AU  - Maulidia Annisa Hilmah
PY  - 2018/07
DA  - 2018/07
TI  - The relationship between social comparison and depressive symptoms among Indonesian Instagram users
BT  - Proceedings of the Universitas Indonesia International Psychology Symposium for Undergraduate Research (UIPSUR 2017)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 130
EP  - 137
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/uipsur-17.2018.19
DO  - 10.2991/uipsur-17.2018.19
ID  - Gaol2018/07
ER  -