Heavy social media use and posting regret are associated with lower self-esteem among middle and high school students

Social media use has become ubiquitous among schoolchildren. This study examined the association of social media use and posting regret with self-esteem among middle and high school students, and tested whether school type (i.e., middle vs. high school) could moderate these associations.

Data on 6944 schoolchildren (mean age: 15.2 ± 1.8 years) were derived from the 2019 cycle of the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey, a biennial repeated cross-sectional survey of students in grades 7 through 12 across Ontario, Canada. Students self-reported time spent using social media, regret of posting on social media, and their self-esteem. Ordinal logistic regression analyses were adjusted for age, sex, subjective socioeconomic status, ethnoracial background, and body mass index z-score.

The proportional odds model showed that middle (OR: 2.36; 95% CI: 1.65-3.36) and high school (OR: 1.72; 95% CI: 1.44-2.06) students with daily social media use of 5 h or more have higher odds of lower self-esteem across the categories of self-esteem. However, daily use of 3 to 4 h was associated with lower self-esteem among middle school students (OR: 1.52; 95% CI: 1.14-2.04), but not among their high school counterparts (OR: 1.13; 95% CI: 0.94-1.35). Posting regret was associated with lower self-esteem in high school students, but not in middle school students.

Results suggest that heavy social media use and posting regret are associated with lower self-esteem among adolescents, and that younger students could be more vulnerable than their older counterparts.