Social Media and Dining Behavior

Abstract

Adolescents and young adults seek attention as well as approval from their peers by creating an idealized version of themselves through their posts on social media sites, and consequently receive both positive and negative feedback based on the content they share. In order to examine whether or not individuals would receive similar reactions for the types of meals they chose to eat, 11 males and 13 females were asked to take a picture of their meal at dinnertime for fourteen days. For seven of those days, they were asked to post the picture on Instagram (public condition) and for the other seven days were asked to take a picture but not to post it on Instagram (private condition). The participants were later asked to complete a questionnaire including sections from the Fundamental Social Motives Inventory, Social Physique Anxiety, and Self-Monitoring Scale. Paired samples t-tests and an ANCOVA were performed. The results of this study were not statistically significant; however, an exploratory analysis of the relationship between the individual difference measures and the public/private manipulation on each of the dependent measures (meal healthiness and happiness with the meal) yielded an interaction between the breakup concern subscale of the FSMI and happiness. In spite of the fact that the current formulation of this research failed to find significant results, it is still a topic that is deserving of further study.