SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Social media research

Social Media Annotated Bibliography

Social network sites, social capital, well-being, research synthesis, and contemporary U.S.

teen use

RESEARCH SCOPE

This bibliography brings together influential scholarly research and recent U.S. survey evidence to

examine how social media functions as a social environment, how use relates to well-being, and how

platform participation changes across populations.

FOUNDATION

boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210-230.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x

ANNOTATION

boyd and Ellison provide one of the field's foundational definitions of social network sites and

distinguish the sites' technical features from the cultures that develop around them. The article

traces the early history of services such as Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo and surveys

the scholarship that had emerged around them. It is valuable for research because it gives a clear

conceptual starting point before a writer moves into narrower questions about identity,

relationships, participation, or platform use. The authors' emphasis on both technology and user

practice also helps prevent social media from being treated as a single, uniform phenomenon.

SOCIAL CAPITAL

Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook "friends:" Social capital

and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated

Communication, 12(4), 1143-1168. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00367.x

ANNOTATION

This study examines Facebook use and three forms of social capital among 286 undergraduate

students. The authors distinguish bonding, bridging, and maintained social capital and use survey

data to examine how these relationships connect with Facebook use and psychological well-being.

The source is especially useful for a project on the social benefits of social media because it goes

beyond counting time spent online and asks what kinds of relationships users may maintain through

a platform. Its university-student participant group also gives a research project a clearly defined

population rather than an overly broad claim about all social media users.

SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Social media research

WELL-BEING

Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D. S., Lin, N., Shablack, H., Jonides, J., & Ybarra,

O. (2013). Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. PLoS ONE,

8(8), e69841. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069841

ANNOTATION

Kross and colleagues study whether Facebook use is associated with changes in subjective

well-being over time. Their experience-sampling design followed young adults through repeated

text-message assessments across two weeks, allowing the researchers to examine use and reported

well-being in close temporal proximity. The paper is useful for social media research because it

illustrates a more detailed way of studying platform use than a single retrospective questionnaire.

At the same time, its focus on Facebook and young adults should be kept in mind when applying the

findings to other platforms or age groups.

EVIDENCE

SYNTHESIS

Valkenburg, P. M. (2022). Social media use and well-being: What we know and what we need to

know. Current Opinion in Psychology, 45, 101294.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.12.006

ANNOTATION

Valkenburg reviews a large body of recent reviews and meta-analyses on social media use and

well-being. Rather than presenting the literature as uniformly positive or negative, the article

explains why existing reviews reach different conclusions, including differences related to time

spent online and patterns of active or passive use. This makes the source valuable for evaluating

evidence quality and competing interpretations in a social media research project. It is also useful

as a guide to unresolved questions, because the review identifies methodological gaps that can

shape further research.

U.S.

ADOLESCENTS

Faverio, M., & Sidoti, O. (2024, December 12). Teens, social media and technology 2024. Pew

Research Center.

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/12/12/teens-social-media-and-technology-2024/

ANNOTATION

Faverio and Sidoti report results from a Pew Research Center survey of 1,391 U.S. teens ages 13 to

17 conducted in September and October 2024. The report documents use of major platforms

including YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, WhatsApp, Reddit, and Threads, and

also measures how frequently teens visit several platforms. For a U.S.-focused bibliography, it

provides recent population-level context that older peer-reviewed studies cannot supply. Its survey

methodology and defined national population make it particularly useful for establishing current

patterns of adolescent social media use before interpreting older research.

Social Media Annotated Bibliography

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