Social media, as an integral part of everyday life especially for young people, plays a significant role in influencing sense of self and well-being. Research suggests that given its interactive nature, sharing personal experiences online often involves a meaning-making process that can have positive impact on how individuals understand themselves and connect with others and further facilitate well-being. Importantly, the engagement of other social media users with online posts may affect individuals' memory-sharing behavior and, in turn, mental health. The present study is the first to examine the effect of peer responsiveness on meaning making in social media posts and well-being.


A sample of 200 college students participated. They were randomly assigned to a high peer-support (HP) or low peer-support condition (LP). In HP, participants were asked to recall a time when their social media friends responded to their posts in a supportive and caring way. In LP, participants were asked to recall a time when their social media friends responded to their posts in a non-supportive or indifferent way. They then completed an online peer responsiveness scale (OPRS) for a manipulation check. Next, participants were directed to Me&MyFriends, a simulated social media platform created for this study. They were asked to make posts about a challenging event and a joyous event on Me&MyFriends. Finally, participants completed state well-being measures (i.e., current mood, state self-esteem, state loneliness).


Participants' memory narratives are being content coded for adaptive meaning making. It is expected that HP participants will report greater peer responsiveness, engage more in adaptative meaning making (i.e., recalling memories with more details, more emotional expressions, and greater themes of redemption and agency), and exhibit better state well-being than LP participants. These original findings will shed light on the impact of the dynamic social media context on individuals' meaning making and well-being.