Abstract

Digital natives, who are born and raised with digital technologies, have a deep affinity with social media. Social media has a great influence over an individual's daily life, even on his/her intimate and romantic relationship. As a breakup of romantic relationships can commonly happen to digital natives, and as it is likely to cause distress and psychological symptoms afterwards, this study attempted to find out the impact of breakups on social media use among digital natives. The quantitate survey was conducted with 175 valid participants between the ages of 18-30. These participants were those who currently live in the United States, who use social media at least once a month, who experienced a romantic breakup in the last six months. The results show that negative self-esteem plays a key role between breakup-associated factors and a strong attachment to social media use in their daily lives. Negative self-esteem mediates social media use with a breakup initiation status or depression prompted by breakup. Negative self-esteem also arises when a person's perceived responsibility towards the breakup or the cause of the breakup is high when they are rejected by their partner.

Degree

College and Department

Fine Arts and Communications; Communications

Rights

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