Delay or Right Away? Synchronicity of Social Media Use and Its Impact on State Social Anxiety Arising from Social Media Use, State Rumination, and Offline Social Anxiety

Abstract

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the pervasive use of social media made huge influences on young adults’ psychological well-being, especially those with social anxieties. Guided by online disinhibition effects and response style theory, the current research conducted a between-subject online experiment (N = 193) with an even split of gender on Amazon MTurk. Findings show that asynchronous social media use increases individuals’ state interaction anxiety on social media compared to synchronous social media use. While state rumination does not mediate the relationship between synchronicity of social media use and state social anxiety arising from social media use (SASMU), it is a significant predictor of individuals’ state SASMU. In addition, findings show that offline social anxiety still matters most in online social interactions, with an overriding effect compared to the impact of one-time social media use. The present investigation sheds light on the relationship between the synchronicity of social media use and social anxiety.