Are You Millennial Generation? The Effect of Social Media Use

toward Mental Health among Millennials

Sarentya Fathadhika, Sarah Hafiza and Nanda Rizki Rahmita

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Indonesia

Keywords: Police Social Media Use, Mental Health, Millenials, Aceh

Abstract: The millennial generation is inseparable from the use of social media. Social media sites have emerged as

important communication channels available that engaged with millennials. Social media use has positive and

negative effects on their mental health. This study explores the effects of social media use among millennials

in relationship with mental health in Aceh Province, Indonesia. A quantitative method with the correlation

technique was used for this study that involved 391 millennials participated (136 males and 255 females

millennials with range aged 19-39 years). Social media use was measured by using the Social Media Use

Integration Scale (SMUIS), while mental health was measured by using the Mental Health Inventory (MHI-

18). The results of the study showed that there exists a significant relationship between social media use with

mental health among millennials (p=.000 r=-.211 This study also found that significant gender differences

among millennials on social media use, which is females consistently showhigher social media use than males.

It can conclude that social media use has to effect on both sides of positive and negative mental health, such

as psychological distress and psychological well-being, further results are discussed.

1 INTRODUCTION

The development of social media is very rapid and

reaches all elements of society, especially the

millennial generation, a group of individuals born in

1980-2000 (19-39 years) (Kaifi, Nafei, Khanfar, &

Kaifi, 2012). They are called millennial because of

their proximity to the new millennium and digital

development (Kaifi et al. 2012) so that computers and

non-traditional values have a major influence on the

millennial generation (Andert, 2011). Unlike

traditional media, social media is an interactive tool

which becomes important for youths and young

adults in creating and shaping experiences

(Michikyan & Suárez-Orozco, 2016).

The latest neuropsychological research states that

one’s self-disclosure on social media activates the

intrinsic reward system of the brain as much as

rewards generated from food and sex (Tamir &

Mitchell, 2012). Judging from the perceived effects,

it explains why most individuals tend to not be

separated from the use of social media. Functionally,

the Pew Research Center project found that the

strongest reason for using social media is connecting

with friends and family, making new friends, finding

partners and also reading celebrity or politician

reviews (Smith, 2011). The study also explains the

diference of age groups toward the use of social

media. 30 to 49yearold Individuals atreported to have

stronger attention in using social media to keep

connecting with other people who have the same

interests and hobbies are 18% compared to 18 to 29

year old individuals at only 10%. Individuals aged 18-

29 years are more focused on connecting with people

who have been present in their lives such as current

friends and family members (Smith, 2011).

The presence of social media in daily activities for

the millennial generation has affected mental health.

The American Association of Suicidology states that

social media can have a major impact on mental

health (American Association for Suicidology, 2017).

Based on its function, social media are connecting

media that allow each individual to interact each

other. Selfhout, Brantje, Delsing, ter Bogt, & Meeus

(2019) found that the quality of interaction on social

media is a predictor of better mental wellness.

Umberson and Montez (2010) state that the quality

and quantity of social relationship affects behavioral

health, physical health, mental health and risk of

mortality. Relationship quality includes positive

aspects in relationships such as emotional support

from others and strained aspects in relationships such

Fathadhika, S., Haﬁza, S. and Rahmita, N.

Are You Millennial Generation? The Effect of Social Media Use toward Mental Health among Millennials.

DOI: 10.5220/0009437300490054

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Psychology (ICPsy 2019), pages 49-54

ISBN: 978-989-758-448-0

as conflict and stress (Umberson & Montez, 2010). In

addition, the use of social media is also associated

with self-presentations that have a positive

connection with well-being (Reinecke & Trepte,

2014; Grieve & Watkinson, 2016).

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the use of

social media is also has a negative impact on mental

health. The presence of negative effects from using

internet on individual’s well-being is a new thing.

Kraut, Kiesler, Boneva, Cummings, Helgeson, and

Crawford (2002) say that several years after the

availability of internet access by The Home Net

Project in 1995, the use of higher internet acces was

associated with symptoms of loneliness and

depression. In 2012, Rosen, Cheever, and Carrier

coined the term "iDisorder", defined as a negative

relationship between the use of technology and

psychological health. After that, the researchers

started to turn to social media. Rosen, Whaling, Rab,

Carrier, and Cheever (2013) examined Facebook

usage in 1,143 students. Researchers found that major

depressive disorder, dysthymia, bipolar-mania,

narcissism, antisocial personality disorder, and

compulsive behavior were predicted to be one of the

most common Facebook usage variables (general use,

number of friends, use for image management).

Depression is associated with negative social

interactions and social isolation (Chou, Liang, &

Sareen, 2011). Another research shows that for 45%

of adults in the UK are indicated to be anxious and

uncomfortable when being unable to access social

media (Anxiety UK, 2012). Moreover, there is a new

term related to it in the medical field, namely

phantom vibration syndrome which is defined as

feeling cellphone vibration while the cellphone is not

vibrating (Drouin, Kaiser, & Miller, 2012). Phantom

vibration syndrome can reflect the form of the

anxietycaused by cellphones as individuals’

obsession to check social media and their messages

(Rohilla & Kumar, 2015).

Research by Fathadhika and Afriani (2018)

toward 343 adolescents in Banda Aceh city found that

98 (28.6%) subjects were addicted to social media. In

addition, social media addiction scale showed most of

the adolescents suffered from difficulty to think about

something when they stop using social media.

According to social media engagement scale, most of

the subjects in this research used social media 15

minutes before sleep and 15 minutes after waking up

each day. It shows that the adolescents in Banda Aceh

are difficult to get away from social media, when they

are about to sleep, and the first thing they do after

waking up is accessing social media.

Furthermore, Research by Fathadhika and Afriani

(2018) showed that 10.5% of subjects suffered from

fear of missing out (FoMo) in high category and the

other 48.7% suffered from moderate category of

FoMo. Przybylski, et al., (2013) defines FoMO as

worry suffered by an individual when other people

have impressive experience while one is not present

there. It makes an individual continuously maintains

the activity in social media without limited time,

therefore it leads to social media addiction (Abel,

Buff, & Burr, 2016).

Based on previous researches, there are positive

and negative effects between the use of social media

and mental health. Therefore, the researchers want to

figure out about the relationship between the use of

social media and mental health among millennial

generation in Aceh. Furthermore, the researchers

want to know whether the use of social media has

more positive or negative effects on mental health in

the millennial generation in Aceh. This research

hypothesis is that there is a relationship between

social media use and mental health among millennials

of Aceh.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Social Media Use

Jenkins-Guarnieri, Wright, and Johnson (2012)

define the use of social media as the rateof to

whatextentsocial media is integrated into users’ social

behavior and daily routine, and the importance of

corelation between emotional and the use of social

media. A focus of measurement was developed to

capture broader concepts that related to the

attachment of using social media.

2.2 Mental Health

Veit and Ware (1983) also define that mental health

as a condition that is not only seen based on there or

not syimptoms psychological preasure, but also some

psychological charateristic that is influential in their

lives. According to Veit and Ware (1983), mental

health has two dimensions, namely:

1. Psychological distress

Psychological distress is an individual condition

that explains the negative affectivity associated

with mental health in an individual. Psychological

distress is divided into three subdimensions,

namely anxiety, depression, loss of behavioral

and emotional control.

ICPsy 2019 - International Conference on Psychology

2. Psychological well-being

Psychological well-being is an individual

condition that can explain the positive affectivity

related to mental health in an individual.

Psychological well-being is divided into two

subdimensions namely positive effects in general

(general positive affect) and emotional ties.

3 RESEARCH METHOD

Subject is from millenial generation, some

individuals aged 19-39 years old in Aceh province.

391 subjects were 391 consisiting of 136 males and

255 females. The data were obtained by online google

form. The study used two measures, that is:

Social Media Use Integration (SMUIS) composed

byJenkins-Guarnieri, Wright, & Johnson in 2012.

SMUIS consists of 10 items that are devided to two

subscales, social integration and emotional

connection subscale as well as integration into social

routines subscale. SMUIS has 6 options from 1

(strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree), the higer

score of which is 60 and the lowest is 10. The higher

the score obtained shows the higher integration of

social media usage, and vice versa. The reliability of

SMUIS in this study is 0.78.Mental Health Inventory

(MHI-18) was composed by Veit and Ware in 1983.

MHI-18 consists of 18 items consisting of four

subscales namely anxiety, depression, behavioral

control, and positive effect. MHI-18 has 6 options

from 1 (all of the time) to 6 (none of the time)., the

highest score is 100 and the lowest score is 0. The

higher the score obtained shows the good

psychological well-being, and vice versa. If getting

low score, the level of psychogical distress will be

higher. The reliability value of MHI-18 in this study

is 0.87.

Spearman Brown Formula technique, a

correlation test method, was used to process the data

in order to test the correlation between the use of

social media and mental health with SPSS 20.0

software. Spearman Brown Formula was used in this

research because assumption test in this research was

not met in which research data were not normally

distributed with value of Asymp.Sig. (2-tailed) 0.061

for MHI and 0.038 for SMUIS. The Data were stated

abnormally distributed because value of Asymp.Sig.

(2-tailed) of one of variables was lower than 0.05

(p<0.05), according to Kolmogorov-Smirnov

normality test.

4 RESULT

Table 1: Distribution of Percentage of Sociodemographic

Factors

Socio-demographic

Factors

Total

Percentage

(%)

Sex

Male

Female

136

255

34.6

65.2

Job Status

Employee

Unemployed

144

247

36.8

63.2

Time of using social media

(per-day)

<30 minutes

30 minutes -1 hour

1-2 hours

2-3 hours

3-5 hours

>5 hours

137

3.6

9.7

18.2

23.8

Type of Gadget

Computer

Laptop

Smartphone

Tablet

377

1.5

1.3

96.4

0.8

The research was conducted to 391 Aceh millenials

consisting of 136 (34,6%) male and 255 (65,2%)

female. Most of the subjects were unemployed for

247 subjects (63,2%) and the rests were employed at

144 (36,8%). Some subjects used social media for

more than 3 hours per day. Subjects using social

media 3-5 hours per day were 93 subjects (23.8%)

and those using social media more than 5 hours per

day were 137 (35%), this number has exceeded half

of the subjects. while the rests used social media less

than 3 hours per day. Gadget that was mostly used by

the subjects was smartphones for 377 (96.4%), the

other subjects used computers (1.5%), laptops

(1.3%), and tablets (0.8%) to access social media.

Spearman Brown Formula testing was conducted

to see the relationship between the intensity of the

social media use and mental health in the millennial

generation in Aceh. Decision making in the Spearman

Brown Formula test can be conducted by looking at

Sig. (2-tailed), if the significance score obtained from

the data analysis is lower than .05 (p<.05), it can be

concluded that there is a relationship between the

variables. On contrary, if the significance score is

higher than .05 (p>.05), there is no relationship

between the two tested variables (Pallant, 2010).

Based on the results of testing on the intensity

variables of social media use with mental health, it

shows a significance value of 0,000 (p =.000). This

Are You Millennial Generation? The Effect of Social Media Use toward Mental Health among Millennials

significance value indicates there is a relationship

between the intensity of social media use and mental

health. Thus it can be concluded that the research

hypothesis proposed in this study was accepted (ha

accepted and ho rejected).

In addition, based on Spearman Brown Formula

test, Correlation Coefficient score was -0.211 (r=-

0.211). This score means that mental health and social

media use has two-way correlation or are negatively

correlated. This can be interpreted that the higher the

intensity of social media use, the lower the level of

mental health. Linearity test result of both variables

also shows r-square score for 0.44 which means that

social media use influence mental health for 44%.

Table 2: Overview of the subjects’ intensity of social media

use and mental health

Variable Total

Percentage

(%)

Intensity of using social

media

High

Low

222

169

56.8

43.2

Mental health

High

Low

348

The table above shows the intensity level of social

media usage and mental health of the subjects. 222

(56,8%) subjects are at high category of the intensity

of social media usage, while other 169 (43,2%) are at

low category. Most of subjects have low mental

health at 348 people (89%) and the others at 43 people

(11%) have high mental health. The data indicate that

most of subjects in this research use social media in

high intensity and have low mental health. The data

are correlated with statistic test which shows that the

high social media use negatively affects one’s mental

health.

5 DISCUSSION

The result of this research shows that the higher

media social use the lower one’s mental health. It is

in accordance with several research that correlated

low mental health with high psychological disorder

such as depression, anxiety, loneliness, emotional

adaptation ability and low self-esteem. Research by

Shensa, Escobar-Viera, Sidani, Bowman, Marshal, &

Primack (2017) and Davila (2012) found that the high

social media use was correlated with the high

depression symptom. The high intensity of social

media use makes them ignore other constructive

aspects in life, so that it could lead to depression

symptom. (Shensa, et.al, 2017). For example,

engagement of social media makes an individual have

shoth time to have face-to-face interaction and be

involved in physical activity (Martinsen, 2008). Ono,

Nozawa, Ogata, Motohashi, Higo, Kobayashi,

Ishikawa, Ara, Yano, & Miyake (2011) found that the

number of face-to-face social interaction is positively

correlated with improving mental health. Physical

activity does not only help prevent certain physical

diseases, but also it has essential role in preventing

and managing depression symptom (Paluska &

Schwenk, 2000). It is because physical activity can

activate endorphin secretion which could reduce pain

and produce happiness (Paluska & Schwenk, 2000).

Another research is by Shensa, Sidani, Dew,

Escobar-Viera, & Primack (2018) that found that the

high social media use was correlated with the

improvement of anxiety and depression symptoms.

Social media usage activity is strongly related to

sedentary behaviors. Sedentary behavior is an activity

that involves sitting and standing position.

(Ainsworth, Haskell, Whitt, Irwin, Schwartz, Strath,

O’Brien, Bassett,Schmitz, Emplaincourt, Jacobs, &

Leon, 2000). Research by Sanchez-Villegas, Ara,

Guillen-Grima, Bes-Rastrollo, Varo-Cenarruzabeitia,

& Martinez-Gonzales (2008) showed that the

participants having high level of sedentary habits

were 31% at risk suffering from mental disorder

(depresi, bipolar, anxiety, or stress), compared to

those with low sedentary behavior. Moreover, the

social media use could cause fear of missing out in

which an individual keep connecting in social media

because fearing of missing information (Andreassen,

Billieux, Griffiths, Kuss, Demetrovics, Mazzoni, &

Pallesen, 2016). Thus, it makes possible to an

individual to suffer from anxiety when being away

from social media.

Screen blue light-caused sleep disorder could

cause bad mental health. Blue light presses melatonin,

drowsiness-producing substance from brain. Bad

sleep could make an individual difficult to receive

positive emotion because suffering from limitation in

correctly processing certain neurotransmitters in the

brain (Woodson, 2006), make an individual feel sad

or unsatisfied. Insomnia is proven increasing the risk

in developing depression (Cole & Dendukuri, 2003;

Riemann & Vodeihoizer, 2005). Another research

found that an individual with anxiety tends to suffer

from difficulty of sound sleep compared to with no

anxiety (Monti & Monti, 2000).

Besides anxiety and depression, the high social

media use is also linked to loneliness (Lou,Yan,

Nickerson, & McMorris, 2012). It is because the

ICPsy 2019 - International Conference on Psychology

mechanism of social media use is inclined to

increasing the number of new friends than improving

friendship more intense therefore it is difficult to have

close friend. Social media probably can fulfill their

social life, however it is still unclear whether they can

meet emotional need until it is emotionally satisfying.

Moreover, social media use is correlated with the low

emotional adaptation (Kalpidou, Costin, & Morris,

2011). That research showed that an individual with

many friends in social media showed low emotional

relationship so that one suffered from social

adaptation difficulty, either emotional adaptation or

academic adaptation. Social adaptation is directed to

one’s feeling of fitting and being satisfied in social

relationship and social activity (Kalpidou, Costin, &

Morris, 2011).

6 CONCLUSIONS

The results showed that there was a negative

relationship between the intensity of social media use

and mental health. This can be interpreted that the

high intensity of social media use is related to the low

level of mental health.

This research is certainly far from perfect so there

are still some shortcomings, either because of the

limitations of the researchers or in the implementation

process. One of research’s shortcomings is in the

process of collecting dataonline which makes not all

people have access to participate in this research.

Moreover this research has uneven subjects number

based on age. Although all subjects were milenials,

the milenials above 30-year-old are few.

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