Peer-reviewed article
FACE-TO-FACE AND FACEBOOK ACROSS THE LIFESPAN: SOCIAL INTERACTIONS BUFFER STRESS ON MOOD, BUT ONLY FOR ADOLESCENTS
Liu Y, Fauth E, Maxey M, Beckert T ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examines how face-to-face and social media interactions affect mood in response to stress across different ages. Researchers collected mood and social contact data from adolescents and older adults three times daily over 12 weeks. The findings show that social interactions buffer stress differently by age: for adolescents, frequent social contact (especially social media) protects mood when stressed, but for older adults, frequent social contact actually worsens mood during stress. The study uses ecological momentary assessment methods to capture real-time experiences.
Key points
- Social interactions buffer stress effects on mood for adolescents but not older adults
- Social media contact shows stress-buffering benefits specifically for adolescents
- High levels of recent social contact exacerbated stress effects on mood for older adults
- Both age groups showed worse mood when avoiding an argument was appraised as stressful
- Study used ecological momentary assessment with 44 adolescents and 75 middle-aged/older adults
Limitations
This study focuses on mood and stress responses in general populations and does not evaluate an intervention to address a specific child well-being problem. The findings about adolescents are observational rather than prescriptive, and the study cannot determine causal mechanisms or recommend specific interventions for improving adolescent well-being.
Abstract
Abstract Social support serves as a protective factor, buffering stress in both adolescents and adults, however Socioemotional Selectivity Theory suggests developmental differences in stress reactivity and social support. It is unclear how modern forms of social contact, such as social media buffer stress, and the extent to which this differs across the lifespan. We utilized ecological momentary data to examine the moderating effects of age and two distinct types of social contacts the person had experienced in prior hours (frequency of face-to-face, or social media contacts) on the association between daily stress and momentary mood. Participants were recruited initially through Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk (adolescents referred by a parent). A total of 119 adolescent (n = 44; Agemean= 15.73) and middle-aged/older adult participants (n = 75; Agemean= 59.67) provided momentary data three times a day, on three consecutive days, every two weeks, for up to 12 weeks. Multi-level models showed significant 3-way interactions between stress appraisal of avoiding an argument, age group, and frequency of social contact via face-to-face (β = 1.698, se = 0.542, p = .002) and social media (β = 3.341, se = 0.984, p = .001). Older adults experienced better mood than adolescents. When avoiding an argument was appraised as more stressful, both age groups displayed worse mood. Whereas high levels of recent social contact (both face-to-face and social media) seemed to exacerbate the impact of this stressor on poorer mood for older persons, high levels of recent social contact, particularly social media, had stress-buffering benefits for adolescents.