Young Adulthood in the Digital Age: A Study on the Impact of Social Media Use, Social Comparison and Purpose Commitment on Quarter Life Crisis

Abstract

This study was carried out for examining the relationship between quarter life crisis, social media use, social comparison and commitment to purpose among young adults. To conduct this study a correlational research design was used. A sample of 450 young adults, including men (N=118) and women (N=332), in the age range from 18 to 35 years were taken using convenient sampling. A questionnaire consisting of Quarter Life Crisis Scale (Afandi et al., 2023), Social Media Use Scale (Tuck & Thompson, 2023), shortened version INCOM Scale (Schneider & Schupp, 2013) and Revised Sense of Purpose Scale (Sharma et al., 2019) was utilized to collect data from young adults for this research. Statistical analyses including Pearson product moment correlation, multiple linear regression, moderation and mediation analysis through process macro were performed to analyze the associations between variables. The results from Pearson product moment correlation showed that quarter life crisis had a significantly positive correlation with three of the subscales of social media use, i.e. comparison based social media use, consumption based social media use, belief based social media use and with social comparison. Quarter life crisis also had a significant negative relationship with awareness of purpose, awakening to purpose and altruistic purpose. The findings of mediation analysis depicted that social comparison acted as significant mediator in the relationship between different subscales of social media use and quarter life crisis. Furthermore, different subscales of commitment to purpose were found as significant moderators in the association between social media use and quarter life crisis. Consequently, this study posits direction for future research and the results may play a part in the advancement of research literature in the field of psychology.