Scholarship on well-being and social media: A sociotechnical perspective

Evaluating the well-being implications of social media use is challenging for many reasons, including finding appropriate theoretical and methodological approaches that do not exclusively center either the technology (and its structural features) or the user (and their motivations, psychological disposition, etc.). We argue that many research questions would benefit from a more integrated approach that fully acknowledges both these elements and their mutually constitutive relationship to one another. This essay highlights the possibilities presented by one intellectual tradition that acknowledges how the materiality of an artifact intertwines with social factors and allows us to better understand how technology and people mutually shape one another: the sociotechnical perspective. We describe three broad domains—self-presentation, social capital, and social support—that are relevant to one's well-being and are especially well-aligned with this approach.