Adolescents on Instagram: Considering the Effects of Envy and the Need for Relatedness on Self-Esteem

Abstract

For today’s adolescents it is hard to imagine a life without social media although it remains questionable how they affect the users’ subjective well-being. In order to better understand this impact, we examined the relationship of active and passive Instagram use with general self-esteem and explored whether benign and malicious envy and need for relatedness function as mediators of these relationships. Six hundred eleven high school students (76.9% female; age: M = 16.20, SD = 1.12) from the City of Zagreb participated in the online survey. The participants filled an item regarding their frequency of active Instagram use, the Benign and Malicious Envy Scale, the Need for Relatedness subscale (a part of the Basic Psychological Needs Scale) and the General Selfesteem subscale (a part of the Marsh’s Self-Description Questionnaire II). The results indicate the absence of a significant relationship between active Instagram use and general self-esteem. Neither benign nor malicious envy function as mediators of this relationship. However, the need for relatedness mediates the relationship between active Instagram use and general self-esteem: adolescents who engage more frequently in active Instagram use tend to have higher levels of need for relatedness satisfaction, which in turn relates to their higher levels of general self-esteem. The obtained results indicate that, contrary to the public perception, social media can have a positive impact in the life of adolescents, but when making such claims, it is crucial to consider the type of activities behind their usage.