Development and Validation of the Motivations for Social Media Use Scale (MSMU) Among Adolescents
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QUALITATIVE REVIEW
Development and Validation of the Motivations for Social Media Use Scale (MSMU) Among Adolescents Rachel F. Rodgers1,2,3 · Siân A. Mclean3 · Chloe S. Gordon3 · Amy Slater4 · Mathew D. Marques3 · Hannah K. Jarman3 · Susan J. Paxton3 Received: 25 April 2020 / Accepted: 24 August 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Theoretical accounts of the relationship between social media use and body image among adolescents have highlighted motivations as an important factor. However, motivations for social media use has received little attention in extant research in the area of body image. The aim of this study was therefore to develop a measure of motivations for social media use among adolescents, with a focus on appearance motivations. Data from 770 adolescents (49% female), mean (SD) age = 12.76 (0.74) were used to examine the psychometric properties of the new Motivations for Social Media Use scale (MSMU). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed a four-factor structure including Connection, Popularity, Appearance, and Values and Interests subscales. All subscales revealed acceptable internal reliability, and convergent validity with internalization of appearance ideals, self-esteem, and social media use. The MSMU is a useful tool for assessing appearance motivations for social media use among adolescent girls and boys. Keywords Social media · Adolescents · Motivations · Body image · Gender
Introduction Consistent with theoretical frameworks highlighting the visual and appearance-focused nature of social media platforms and content (Rodgers 2016), social media use has been found to be related to body image concerns among adolescents (McLean Paxton et al. 2015; Slateret al. 2017; Tiggemann and Slater 2013) and youth (Cohen et al. 2017). However, the understanding of the individual-level factors that modulate this relationship is poor, particularly for adolescents. It has been proposed that motivations for use may play an important role in determining ways in which youth * Rachel F. Rodgers [email protected] 1
APPEAR, Department of Applied Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, USA
2
Department of Psychiatric Emergency and Acute Care, Lapeyronie Hospital, CHRU Montpellier, Montpellier, France
3
School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
4
Centre for Appearance Research, University of the West of England, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK
engage with social media (Rodgers 2016). While emerging research has supported this proposal among young adults (e.g. Dhir et al.2017; Papacharissi and Mendelson 2010), to date, few studies have explored motivations for social media use among adolescents (Teppers et al. 2014). In part, this has been due to the absence of appropriate measures to assess motives. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to develop a measure of motivations for social media use among adolescents, to inform future work examining the relationship between adolescent social media
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