• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.238-248
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• 2020

This study examines the feelings of positivity and negativity generated through upward social comparison and explores the impact of the results of the emotions on SNS users' posting behavior. In particular, this study aims to systematically identify the influence of upward social comparison on SNS followers and uploaders' SNS usage behavior and the structural principle of social network circulation in which followers become uploaders again. According to the analysis, interaction-oriented followers made negative upward social comparison and positive upward social comparison, while negative upward social comparison reduced the publication of independence tendency. However, positive upward social comparison has been shown to increase both independent and interactive postings. The results of this study are meaningful in that SNS has expanded the results of prior studies, in which social comparison theories were biased toward negative upward comparisons, to positive upward comparisons. In addition, this study suggested a practical strategy for SNS platform operators on how SNS users would not deviate from other platforms.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.1626-1638
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• 2019

Social Networking Sites (SNS) provide people with unique online social interaction environments where users can disclose their thoughts, feelings, and opinions to their personal contacts. Although previous studies have suggested that such activities produce positive effects on SNS user well-being, this study considered potential negative effects by investigating the relationship between SNS use and depression. In particular, This stydy examined how specific activities are related to different types of social comparison (upward/downward/horizontal) and how these different types of social comparison influence depressed moods among college students. The analysis of a survey of 245 Instagram users found that (1) looking at other people's status updates and commenting on other people's photos influences upward social comparison, (2) frequency of Instagram use predicts upward/downward/horizontal social comparison, and (3) upward social comparison was postively associated with depression, while downward social comparison was negatively associated with depression. Furthermore, the path anlaysis show that social comparison mediates the effect of Instagram use on depression. It suggests that Instagram use does not directly increase depression but it can lead to depression when social comparison on Instagram triggers depression.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.59 no.3
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• pp.353-367
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating effect of middle school students'self-deprecation in the relationship between upward social comparison in social network service (SNS) and depression and the moderated mediating effect of cognitive flexibility. The participants were 288 middle school students, in the first to third grades from four middle schools located in Seoul, Gyeong-gi, and Jeonnam. The date were analyzed with descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation coefficients and the Process Macro Model 4, 1, and 14. The results of this study are as follows. First, an upward comparison in SNS has a significant positive influence on students'depression, and students' self-deprecation of students mediated the relation between two. Second, the level of control, which is a sub-factor of cognitive flexibility, moderated the mediating effect of self-deprecation. That is, if students are more likely to perceive difficult situations as controllable, upward social comparison in SNS mediated by self-deprecation has smaller effect on depression. Based on these results, we suggest practical interventions to reduce depression among middle school students by decreasing upward social comparison in SNS and self-deprecation. In addition, helping students perceive difficult situations as controllable could be another effective way of reducing depression among those students who have a high level of self-deprecation in upward social comparison in SNS.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.574-590
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• 2016

This research aims to examine the effects of various types of social comparison in SNS on users' life satisfaction. For this, this research posited four types of social comparison including upward contrast, upward identification, downward contrast and downward identification that might affect SNS users' life satisfaction. Several other factors including demographic variables, SNS usage time, offline social capital and social comparison orientation as control variables were taken into account and the moderating effects of social comparison orientation in the relationships between four types of social comparison and users' life satisfaction was also examined. An online survey was employed for collecting data and the date collected were analyzed with hierarchical regression analysis. The results showed that ages and marriage status have influences on SNS users' life satisfaction. It was proven that the degrees to which SNS users participate in family activities and club/group activities in which they are interested have correlations with their life satisfaction. The findings also revealed that only upward contrast and upward identification among four types of social comparison have influences on the life satisfaction and there is the moderating effect of social comparison orientation on the relationship between upward identification and life satisfaction. On the basis of the results, the necessity of new perspectives in understanding social comparison experience in SNS as compared to the existing literature were discussed.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.186-199
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• 2021

SNS (social networking service) plays an important role in delivering information regarding fashion brands and providing a space for communication between fashion retailers and SNS users, as well as between users. This study primarily focuses on exploring the relationships among the motivation of SNS users and social comparison, clothing purchasing behaviors and the difference in the relationships according to individual characteristics. An online survey was conducted on Chinese female consumers in their 20's and 30's who had experience in fashion SNS. A total of 297 women completed online survey. The results of the study revealed that: (1) consumers who have stronger motivation of information seeking and interpersonal communication through fashion SNS reached more active upward comparison and peer comparison accordingly; (2) upward comparison had a significant effect on conspicuous consumption and bandwagon, while peer comparison had no significant effect; and (3) the self-esteem of fashion SNS users significantly moderated the effect of social comparison on conspicuous consumption and conformity consumption. This study contributed to expanding the knowledge on the relationships among the motivations of SNS users and social comparison, and shed light on Chinese SNS users' characteristics and purchasing behaviors in the fashion SNS context. This study also provides vital implications to fashion brands and retailers.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.59-77
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• 2015

Social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook, provide abundant social comparison opportunities. Given the widespread use of SNSs, the purpose of the present study was to examine the impact of exposure to social media-based social comparison on user's negative emotions and discontinuous use intention on SNS. We present evidence that under the use of SNS, social comparison activities diverge into three patterns, with explicit self-evaluation desire made against similar target (lateral comparison), self-defense desire made against less fortunate target (downward comparison), and self-enhancement desire made with more fortunate target (upward comparison). Such social comparison processes frequently arise, as people are increasingly using on SNSs, the downward contacts ameliorating self-esteem with positive emotions, but the upward contacts and standard contacts with lateral status enabling a person to compare his or her situation with others and simultaneously increase negative emotions due to its differences with others. In other words, as people increasingly relying on SNSs for a variety of everyday tasks, they risk overexposure to upward or standard social comparison information that may have a cumulative detrimental impact on future intention on SNS use. This study with survey with 209 SNS users found that these negative emotions lead to negative fatigue (attitude) and then discontinuous use intention (behavior) on SNS. Our findings are among the first to explicitly examine discontinuous use intention on SNS using social comparison theory and our results are consistent with those of past research showing that upward social comparisons can be detrimental.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.371-381
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• 2018

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the mediating effects of self-esteem between social comparison orientation and social network service (SNS) addiction in university students. Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional survey design was employed. The data were statistically analyzed by using the descriptive and inferential statistics. Sobel test and Bootstrap method, and Kappa squared mediation effect size measure were used to identify the mediator's significance. A convenience sample of 195 subjects was recruited from two universities in Korea. Results: The mean age of the subjects was $22.58{\pm}1.81$. The subjects showed relatively high levels of SNS addiction with a mean score of $14.33{\pm}4.80$. The overall model significantly explained 37.0% of variances in the subjects' SNS addiction after controlling gender, age, grade, major, period of SNS using, time spent on SNS per day, and times accessed SNS per day. Of the predictors, time spent on SNS per day, social comparison orientation, and self-esteem were significantly associated with SNS addiction. Self-esteem was the mediator between social comparison orientation and SNS addiction. Conclusion: When developing strategies for preventing SNS addiction, interventions for reducing time spent on SNS per day, not having upward social comparison orientation, and improving the self-esteem should be considered. These findings might provide a theoretical basis for developing effective strategies for preventing SNS addiction in university students.

• The Journal of Korean Academic Society of Nursing Education
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.41-50
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• 2023

Purpose: The aim of this descriptive study was to identify the factors influencing depression risk among South Korean nursing students. Methods: The data were collected from nursing students attending two universities through web-based questionnaires that surveyed them about depression, academic stress, social network service (SNS) addiction tendency, and upward social comparison from August 22 to September 4, 2021. The collected data from 196 nursing students were analyzed by t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficients, and multiple linear regression. Results: The mean score of depression (using CES-D Korean version) among nursing students was 13.91, which denotes probable depression. Concerning the variance with regard to depression among nursing students, 20.2% was explained by clinical practice period, academic stress, and upward social comparison. Conclusion: Programs to relieve academic stress and depression should be developed in a simple way and systematically provided at the organizational level so that nursing students secure sufficient support during the initial and continuing period of clinical practicums. Concomitantly, an attempt to reduce the upward social comparison should be highly considered.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.111-129
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• 2016

Purpose Today, world-wide societies share their daily life and many communities exchange their information through the explosive developed SNS and the social media systems. However, many SNS fatigue related factors forced the discontinuance of SNS. This paper is aim to examine effect of SNS feature and negative emotion to figure out the reason of SNS discontinuance. This is verifying the effect of maintenance of SNS, security concern and psychological concern on SNS fatigue and the effect of upward/lateral comparison on negative emotion. Moreover, the effect of SNS fatigue and negative concern on the SNS discontinuance intention was examined. Design/methodology/approach This research used to the survey method to test its hypotheses and the survey population is Facebook SNS users. A software tool called AMOS 18 is used to analyze the structural equation model. Findings The results showed that maintenance of SNS, security concern and psychological concern had a positive effect on SNS fatigue respectively and upward/lateral comparison did on negative emotion. In addition, SNS fatigue and negative emotion had significant effect on discontinuance intention.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.91-102
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• 2020

Contingent self-esteem can be maintained by meeting the standards of social or introjected values. This study investigated whether social media-related contingent self-esteem was associated with depression in Instagram users; in a sample of 319 Instagram users, we examined the effect of contingent self-esteem on depression and the mediating effect of upward social comparison on this theorized relationship. The study findings indicated that higher contingent self-esteem predicted higher levels of depression for a week in Instagram users, which could be explained by the upward social comparisons made on this application, and showed that Instagram users with higher contingent self-esteem tended to compare themselves with other users they considered superior, thereby increasing their depression. This study provided evidence for the mechanism underlying the association between using social media and psychological well-being and indicated the vulnerability of contingent self-esteem within the social media context. Other implications and future research directions were also discussed.