Shaoyu Ye

This review examines the evolving relationship between social media use and health from the perspective of the World Health Organization (WHO), which defines health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being. Drawing on recent empirical findings and systematic reviews, this paper synthesizes current evidence regarding how social media use relates to the three dimensions of health and may facilitate the spread of health misinformation. As social media has become deeply integrated into daily life, understanding these dynamics is increasingly important for developing evidence-based strategies that promote public health in the digital era. Under the theme “What We Have Known so far,” this review highlights the dual nature of social media as a double-edged sword. On one hand, social media facilitates health promotion, knowledge sharing, social support, and the development of social capital and interpersonal relationships, improving the three dimensions of well-being. On the other hand, excessive or problematic use has been associated with adverse mental, physical and social health outcomes, while exposure to online misinformation poses substantial challenges to effective public health communication. This review further emphasizes that social media impacts vary across platforms, user characteristics, patterns of engagement, and combinations of platforms. Under the theme “What We Need to Investigate in the Future,” several research priorities are identified. These include adopting an integrated framework that simultaneously considers physical, mental, and social health; moving beyond cross-sectional designs toward longitudinal and causal approaches and examining platform-specific effects and the influence of individuals’ broader social media portfolios; incorporating objective behavioral measures alongside self-reported data and investigating the emerging role of generative artificial intelligence in health communication and misinformation; and developing evidence-based interventions to improve social media literacy and promote healthier patterns of use. Overall, this review argues that future research should move beyond asking whether social media is beneficial or harmful to health and instead identify when, how, for whom, and under what circumstances it promotes or compromises well-being. Such an integrated perspective will provide a stronger scientific foundation for public health policies and healthier digital societies.

This study investigates how self-presentation and social skills relate to physical health among university students in Japan and Hong Kong, with particular attention to the mediating roles of social media use and social support. We conducted two online surveys; as a result, 452 participants in Japan and 289 participants in Hong Kong were analyzed using multi-group structural equation modeling. Across both samples, social skills were directly associated with increased physical symptoms, and this direct association was substantially stronger than the indirect association through social support, which was linked to fewer physical symptoms. Notable cross-cultural differences also emerged. In Japan, self-presentation was directly associated with increased respiratory–sleep symptoms (R-SSs), and this direct association was stronger than the indirect pathway through posting frequency and time spent on social media. In contrast, in Hong Kong, no direct association between self-presentation and physical symptoms was detected, although an indirect association through social media usage time—leading to increased R-SS—emerged at a marginally significant level. These findings highlight the dual and context-dependent effects of personal attributes in digital environments, demonstrating that characteristics typically associated with positive social functioning may produce unintended health consequences online. By integrating personal factors, social media behaviors, and cultural context, this study advances understanding of digital well-being and physical health in contemporary societies.

This study investigated whether young adults’ social media use and subjective well-being (SWB) changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It examined the possible relationships between social media use, SWB, and personality traits. It included generalized trust, self-consciousness, friendship, and desire for self-presentation and admiration, in relation to different patterns of social media use and genders. Data were collected from university students in Japan from 2021 to 2023 and were analyzed based on different social media use patterns. The conceptual model was based on the cognitive bias and social network mediation models. Data were analyzed using ANOVA and regression analyses. The findings revealed that, over time, young adults’ anxiety toward COVID-19 decreased, while their SWB improved and their social support increased. Depression tendencies showed a negative association, whereas social support was positively related to improvement of SWB for all three patterns of social media use. Furthermore, online communication skills had a positive relationship with improvements in students’ SWB in Patterns 1 (LINE + Twitter + Instagram) and 2 (LINE + Twitter + Instagram + TikTok). The self-indeterminate factor had a positive relationship with students’ SWB for all patterns in 2022 and 2023, and the praise acquisition factor had a positive relationship with improvements in students’ SWB in Patterns 1 and 2. These results suggest that young adults maintained their mental health through different social media usage patterns, considering their personality traits and social situations associated with COVID-19. Particularly, receiving social support, decreasing people’s depression tendencies, and displaying different aspects of the “self” online can improve SWB. This study elucidates the mental health situations of university students in Japan and will help public health authorities develop new support programs that help digital natives improve their mental health in the context of social environmental changes.

This study examined the causal relationships between university students’ social media use (e.g., LINE, Twitter (X), Instagram) and their subjective well-being (SWB) in Japan, considering the effects of gender and academic standing. Between May 2021 and May 2022, a two-wave panel survey of university students enrolled in the Kanto region of Japan was conducted. The cross-lagged effects model analysis clarified the following results: (1) Overall, the amount of time spent using LINE decreased the participants’ SWB, which was significant among first-year students. (2) Female students’ amount of time spent using Instagram tended to improve their SWB. (3) SWB had a negative effect on posting frequency on Twitter overall and among male students. (4) Lower SWB led third-year students to use Twitter longer. Data were collected during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, and further analyses were conducted to clarify whether this affected the results. SWB had marginally negative effects on anxiety toward COVID-19 among male Instagram users and female Twitter users. In contrast, anxiety toward COVID-19 had a marginally weak negative effect on SWB among third-year students who used Twitter. These findings suggest that the relationship with SWB may differ according to the type of social media used. These relationships are not limited to specific periods, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, improving the SWB of the younger generations could help prevent excessive Twitter usage. Future education on social media use should consider how social media types affect different causal relationships with SWB among young adults, including the effects of gender and academic standing.

This study examined how university students’ social media use is related to their mental health (subjective well-being [SWB] and loneliness) and perceived physical health. A cognitive bias model and a social network mediation model were used to compare social capital formed via face-to-face and online communication, considering the effects of personality traits (i.e., social skills, generalized trust, and social tolerance). We conducted a self-report survey with 409 university students in Japan from August to September 2022. Four patterns of social media use were analyzed: (1) Twitter only, (2) LINE + Twitter, (3) Instagram + Twitter, and (4) Discord + Twitter. Relationships between the variables were investigated with a structural equation modeling analysis using SmartPLS 4.0. Overall, regardless of social media use patterns, personality traits had positive direct effects on mental health and also had positive effects on social capital via face-to-face (FTF) communication, which had mediating effects on the improvement of mental health. FTF social capital had a positive relationship with online social capital, which did not have relationships with mental or perceived physical health. Additionally, perceived physical health decreased loneliness but was not associated with SWB. Social media use negatively affected perceived physical health but had no effect on SWB or loneliness. Finally, different relationships between personality traits and social media use, FTF social capital and SWB, social media use and perceived physical health were observed among the four patterns of social media use. This study has implications for improving the health of young adults in the “mobile x social era.” In particular, we provide suggestions to help young adults improve their mental health.

Purpose: This study explored how the use of different social media is related to subjective well-being among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. Design/methodology/approach: We surveyed 1,681 university students in the Kanto region of Japan in May 2021 to investigate how social media use relates to subjective well-being. We also examined the effects of self-consciousness and friendship, self-presentation desire, generalized trust, online communication skills, depression tendency and social support from others. Findings: The responses revealed 15 possible patterns of social media usage on four widely used social media in Japan (LINE, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook). We selected users with the top five patterns for further statistical analyses: LINE/Twitter/Instagram/Facebook, LINE/Twitter/Instagram, LINE/Twitter, LINE/Instagram and LINE only. Overall, self-establishment as a factor of self-consciousness and friendship, and social support from others had positive effects on the improvement of subjective well-being, whereas depression tendency had negative effects on their subjective well-being regardless of their usage patterns, of which the results of social support from others and depression tendency were consistent with the results of previous studies. Regarding other factors, they had different effects on subjective well-being due to different patterns. Effects on subjective well-being from self-indeterminate and self-independency as factors of self-consciousness and friendship, praise acquisition, self-appeal and topic avoidance as factors of self-presentation desire were observed. Originality/value: This is among the earliest studies on the relationship between young generations’ social media use and subjective well-being through social media usage patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan.

The COVID-19 pandemic heightened concerns about health and safety, leading people to seek information to protect themselves from infection. Even before the pandemic, false health information was spreading on social media. We conducted a review of recent literature in health and social sciences and proposed a theoretical model to understand the factors influencing the spread of false health information. Our focus was on how false health information circulated before and during the pandemic, impacting people’s perceptions of believing information on social media. We identified four possible strategies to counteract the negative effects of false health information: prebunking, refuting, legislation, and media literacy. We argue that improving people’s social media literacy skills is among the most effective ways to address this issue. Our findings provide a basis for future research and the development of policies to minimize the impact of false health information on society.

The COVID-19 Pandemic has changed the world in multiple ways. Global lockdown forced people to adopt remote learning and work, creating many examples of different organizations (government agencies, businesses, and educational institutions) adapting to this new paradigm through digital transformation (DX). In this article, we review how educational institutions digitally transformed the teaching and learning processes into remote learning and how government agencies and businesses reengineered their business processes to facilitate remote work worldwide. Based on this review, we further discuss how our society will embrace these new working and learning paradigms in the post-COVID-19 era.