Therapeutic Affordances of Social Media and Associated Quality of Life Outcomes in Young Adults

Abstract

There is a growing body of literature exploring the general population’s use of social media for assistance in dealing with stigmatized health issues. This study presents novel research examining the relationship between social media use and young adults. It utilizes a therapeutic affordance (TA) framework. Quantitative results from this study are complemented by qualitative data. The relationships between distinct social media and their TA (a–b) are presented to highlight their potential to impact positively on social and emotional well-being outcomes. Evidence includes broad support for “connection,” “narration,” and “collaboration” TAs in this context and the relationship between the use of distinct social media and perceived quality of life (QOL) outcomes (a–c). TA provides an appropriate and valuable theoretical framework which is useful for the development of an evidence-base from the analysis of young adult’s social media usage. An analysis of the association between social media and their QOL outcomes is presented according to the TA relationship pathway (a–c–b). The adoption of a TA framework enables a nuanced analysis of significant associations between specific social media, TA, and improved QOL outcomes. This study demonstrates the significant association between social media and perceived QOL outcomes in young adults.