Black Women’s Social Media Use Integration and Social Media Addiction

Abstract

Black American women are among the largest consumer groups of social media in the United States. In recent years, Black American women have curated spaces on social media platforms to authentically converse about Black womanhood and resist structural gendered racism. Still, there is a dearth of research on the subjective importance of Black American women’s social media use and risks for social media addiction. This study tested the association between social media use integration and social media addiction, and whether connectedness to Black women moderated this relationship. Data from 354 Black American women ( Mage = 24.34 years) were collected using an online survey. We found that social media use integration was positively associated with social media addiction. Connectedness to Black women moderated this relation, such that the positive association between social media use integration and social media addiction was magnified at a higher level of connectedness to Black women. Our findings inform practice implications for a non-pathologizing approach to addressing social media addiction among Black American women with consideration to structural gendered racist contexts.

#Wematter: Creating culturally tailored health promotion content for Black and Latina college women on Instagram

“…Despite instances of hostility, Black and Latina women frequently use social media platforms as a means to connect and curate content that can initiate and support lifestyle changes and/or improvements 7 such as decisions related to physical health. Consequently, these decisions have dire consequences as health inequities within Black and Brown communities still exist at disparate proportions as 56.9% of Black women are considered obese and 43.7% of Latina women assume that same designation.…”