Siddhi S. Kavade Janet
Starlit Ability Enhancement, Mumbai
Priscilla Paul
Mumbai University, Mumbai
Fernandes e de Souza
St. Xavier’s College, Goa.
Pages:202-209
Swift Communication and information exchange has made social networking a vital
part of people’s daily lives. Young adults in most countries, make up the majority of
social media users. More notably, Instagram is the most popular social media platform
within emerging adults globally. Instagram’s visually-oriented culture enables various
options for online self-presentation resulting in social comparison thereby affecting self
-esteem. The present study explores the relationship among Instagram usage, social
comparison and self-esteem. Participants were 116 young adults, 58 males & 58 females,
age range 18 – 29 years, using purposive sampling with selection criteria being active
users on Instagram. Online survey via Google forms was used to collect data. Pearson
Product Moment correlation revealed a moderate positive significant relationship (r
=0.42, P<0.01) between Instagram usage and social comparison, moderate negative
significant relationship (r = -0.43, P<0.01) between social comparison and self- esteem
and low negative insignificant relationship (r = -0.10) between Instagram usage and
self-esteem. Further, regression analysis revealed that social comparison accounts for
significant amount of negative variance (23.1%) where the R Square change is 0.151
= (15.1%) (P < 0.001) on self -esteem whereas Instagram usage effect on self -esteem
was insignificant. An attempt at mediation analysis showed that social comparison
does not mediate the relationship between Instagram Intensity and Social Comparison.
Sex differences on Instagram usage, social comparison and self-esteem were found
insignificant..
: Instagram Use, Social Comparison, Self Esteem