The new environment of social comparison: Social media

The increasing use of social media today can cause many unpredictable results. The use of social media, which can also become addictive, has become the only socialization environment for many people, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Young adulthood (18-40 years old) is a period when communication with others is of great importance for the psychology of individuals, and according to Social Comparison Theory, people have the urge to confirm their perceptions of themselves. People can form positive or negative self-schemas as a result of comparing themselves with others. In the study conducted with 170 participants, the relationship between the intensity of social media use and social comparison levels of young adults in Turkey was examined. In the research, a questionnaire containing questions about social media use and the Social Comparison Scale (SCS) were used. As a result of the analyzes made; It shows that the daily social media usage time, the number of followers, the number of shares, age and marital status have a statistically significant effect on the positive or negative self-schema according to the scores obtained from the Social Comparison Scale. No statistically significant difference was found between the groups in terms of number of social media platforms used, frequency of sharing on social media, number of accounts followed and gender. Apart from the analysis, information was also collected about the social media habits of the participants, their attitudes towards social media and their views on social media advertisements.