Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Publication Date
Spring 5-1-2024
Journal
Undergraduate Honours Theses
Abstract
When first year undergraduate students are learning how to navigate their new social environment, they have the choice to redefine themselves through social media. The objective of the present study was to examine how the curation of first year students’ online identities relates to their levels of social anxiety and whether this proposed link might be explained by the degree to which students portray themselves in an authentic (genuine and accurate) way. We hypothesized that: (1) the more individuals curate their social media identities, the less authentic their identities would be online (H1a) and offline (H1b); (2) lower levels of authenticity would predict greater social anxiety (H2); and (3) lower levels of authenticity would serve as a mediator between the curation of one’s social media identity and increased levels of social anxiety (H3). To test our hypotheses, we asked 78 undergraduate psychology students (Mage = 18.35, female = 51%) in their first year of university to fill out an online self-report survey containing questions about demographics, social media use, authenticity, and social anxiety. H1 was partially supported, with a significant positive correlation between curation, inauthenticity online and social anxiety (H1A), whereas inauthenticity offline only had a significant positive correlation with social anxiety (H2). Further, online (but not offline) inauthenticity served as a significant partial mediator of the relationship between curation and social anxiety (H3), even after controlling for gender and time spent on social media. Findings suggest that heavy social media curation is associated with decreased online authenticity, which may lead to increased social anxiety in real-life interactions. Future research may look at the implications of this link on active identity development of emerging adults within new social environments.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Notes
Thesis Advisor(s): Dr. Tara Dumas