Prior research has investigated the link between social media use (SMU) and negative well-being. However, the connection with positive well-being has not been extensively studied, leading to a situation where there are inconsistent and inconclusive findings. This study fills this gap by examining the correlation between excessive and problematic SMU and subjective as well as psychological well-being (PWB). We conducted a systematic search across databases such as PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science, and gray literature sources such as Research Gate and ProQuest, yielding 51 relevant studies for meta-analysis, encompassing a sample size of 680,506 individuals. Employing the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale, we assessed study quality, whereas statistical analysis was executed using R Studio. Excessive SMU showed no significant association with subjective (ES = 0.003, 95% confidence interval [95% CI]: −0.08, 0.09; p = 0.94, I2 = 95.8%, k =16) and PWB (ES = 0.16, 95% CI: −0.15, 0.45; p = 0.26, I2 = 98%, k = 7). Conversely, problematic SMU showed a negative correlation with subjective (ES = −0.14, 95% CI: −0.20, −0.09; p = 0.00, I2 = 93.3%, k = 25) and PWB (ES = −0.19, 95% CI: −0.31, −0.06; p = 0.01, I2 = 95%, k = 5), with two outliers removed. No publication bias was detected. Subgroup analysis highlighted effects of “sampling method” (p < 0.05), “study quality” (p < 0.05), “developmental status” (p < 0.05), “forms of social media” (p < 0.05), and “type of population” (p < 0.01) on the estimated pooled effect sizes. Although univariate meta-regression showed the effects of “% of Internet users” (p < 0.05) and “male%” (p < 0.05), and multivariate meta-regression showed the combined effect of moderators only on the relationship between problematic SMU and subjective well-being.
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