Influencer Success & Wellbeing
A significant association was found between extended social media usage and heightened negative emotions among influencers who reported spending more than 5 hours daily on these platforms. This exposure over long periods of time can lead to chronic stress and emotional exhaustion.
Negative feelings also showed a gradual rise as influencers expanded their engagement across more platforms. Managing multiple channels (up to 7) imposes more pressure to create tailored content, which increases the burden and effort required.
More Followers Means More Anxiety
While followers are the currency of the influencing world, the study demonstrated that success in follower count is linked to emotional distress.
Negative emotions escalate with followers. A statistically significant association was found. As the number of followers increased, negative emotions also escalated.
Loss of Privacy & Control
A substantial following can lead to a loss of privacy and control over personal lives, forcing influencers to monitor their behaviors and maintain a specific public image. This pressure to meet expectations contributes to anxiety, stress and negative emotions.
The Social Comparison Trap
Influencers typpically engage in upward social comparisons when exposed to others "seemingly perfect lives," which makes feelings of inadequacy or lower self esteem which can contribute to burnout.
Financial Success
The study also investigated the correlation between social media income and psychological health and found a contrast between high and low earners.
The safest spot is low income influencers which is defined by those who earned less than $10,000 from social media. They reported the lowest negative feeling scores. Researchers suggest this group experiences less social comparison and cognitive dissonance because they do not rely on social media for their primary income.
Conversely influencers earning more than $200,000 annually generally reported some of the highest Negative Affect Scores (NAS).
This intense financial pressure demands continual monetization of their presence and can shift their content focus from personal passions to commercial viability resulting in burn out and dissatisfaction.
Increased income from social media was significantly associated with elevated scores in both relationship avoidance and anxiety
