Date

4-18-2025

Department

School of Behavioral Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD)

Chair

Kelly Gorbett

Keywords

church members, social media, depression, anxiety, stress

Disciplines

Psychology

Abstract

Social media has remained an area that each person has related to in their everyday experiences. The growth of social media has continued and expanded to include a wide range of varying platform opportunities for users. Given the variances with social media engagements, everyone differs with their resulting overall mental health characteristics. This study explored the relationship between the user engagement on multiple social media platforms and self-reported depression, stress, and anxiety. The variables included the number of social media platforms and the self-reported responses to the Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale-21 (DASS21). For this study, the participants included 117 individuals who were at least 18 years of age and older, had an active church membership, and accessed at least three different social media platforms. This study was considered a quantitative correlational study and a Spearman’s rank-order test was utilized to analyze the obtained data. Data generated from this study provided information that extended beyond social media usage and explored the correlation with engagement practices that included accessing multiple platforms on a user’s mental health. A social media flyer and post were provided with a link and QR code to complete the survey. The obtained findings did not reflect a statistically significant correlation between multiple platform social media engagement and depression, anxiety, and stress. Previous research has indicated that social media had a relationship with mental health concerns; however, a consistent contributing factor has not been identified. Recording the age and gender along with identifying the type of platform accessed could have yielded more significant results.

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