Comparing Our Abilities on Instagram Makes Us Unhappy – An Exposition Study with Respect to Ability- vs. Opinion-Based Social Comparisons on Instagram

Social networks are experiencing great popularity, with Instagram currently being the most intensively used network. On these platforms, users are continuously exposed to self-relevant information that fosters social comparisons. A distinction is made between ability-based and opinion-based comparison dimensions. To experimentally investigate the influence of these comparison dimensions on users' subjective well-being, an online exposition experiment (N = 409) was conducted. In a preliminary study (N = 107), adequate exposition stimulus material was selected in advance. The results of the main study indicated that exposition of ability-related social comparisons in the context of social media elicited lower well-being than exposition of opinion-related social comparisons. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings were discussed and suggestions for future work were outlined.