Beyond Platforms: Assessing the Value of a Cross-Platform Perspective on SNS and Mental Health
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Research on social networking sites (SNS) and mental health has produced highly heterogeneous findings, often attributed to differences between platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. In response, cross-platform comparisons are increasingly proposed as a promising analytical direction, yet their actual conceptual and explanatory value remains unclear. Rather than aiming to identify platform-specific effects, this Short Report critically examines whether a cross-platform perspective meaningfully advances our understanding of SNS-mental health associations. To this end, we conduct a brief scoping review of quantitative studies that explicitly compare multiple SNS platforms within the same design (N = 14). The review reveals substantial methodological and conceptual inconsistencies across studies, suggesting that platform-level comparisons alone rarely clarify observed heterogeneity. We argue that future research would benefit from moving beyond platform labels toward a feature- and affordance-based cross-platform approach that is more closely aligned with psychological theory.
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7131750011