From Facebooking to Vaguebooking

A subtle cry for attention via social media platforms

Millennials and Generation Z were told at an early age by their parents and guardians to limit screen time. So, without knowing, the guardians of today’s young adults prepared them to approach social media with caution. Except it’s not just the time spent on social media that can cause harm—what the user is consuming while they passively scroll can also cause problems.

Chloe Berryman and her research team studied social media usage and its effects on young adults’ mental health. They did not find a strong correlation between media usage and mental health, but rather, they pinpointed a term and action which indicates someone is struggling with their mental health. This term is called vaguebooking.

What is Vaguebooking?

Vaguebooking is an attention-seeking attempt online, typically framed in a way to tell the other users they’re not doing well without sharing a lot of information. This can resemble negative self-talk, such as: “I had a terrible day,” “I don’t know why I’m here,” “Does anyone even care about me?” These forms of vaguebooking are a result of negative social media use, creating a vague, concerning post in the hopes of someone reaching out to check on them.

Ultimately, it’s likely the individual utilizing vaguebooking is struggling, and this type of behaviour online should be investigated with empathy.

Social Media: The Two Most Harmful Results of Prolonged Usage

Looking through the lens of how social media is harmful to young adults, the researchers studied the effects it can have on the relationship with parents. Young adults are curating their online persona, but due to the relative newness of social media, it’s difficult to know where to draw the line for personal boundaries on what to share, when to share, and how to share it. This correlates with how we know when to slow down our media consumption and at what point our personal relationships are affected by our social media use.

Mental Health: Prolonged social media can result in young adults retreating into themselves and therefore beginning to exhibit problematic behaviours and thoughts.

Parent/Child Relationship: Parents are struggling with their children's use of social media and the relationship with their child is consequently being affected. The parents who participated in the survey acknowledged having more conflict with their children due to social media.

Quality Over Quantity with Social Media

Social media is often viewed by the public as a negative social interaction tool, surely intended to decrease your mental health by accessing any of the multiple platforms. But as covered in many of the studies we’ve broken down in our blog, quality rather than quantity of use is crucial. Being aware of your behaviours and putting the “social” back into social media will result in a positive relationship with the multimedia platforms.

To curate a positive experience for yourself on social media, do not present yourself with a false persona—stay true to your personal identity and create a safe space for others to view your page.

Ultimately, when you see friends, family, or someone you know utilising vaguebooking online, please check up on them. Asking for help is difficult, so it’s important to emphasise their situation and see if they need a safe space to talk with you or a professional.

We are all new to social media: there’s always something new to learn and experience while scrolling through social media. Give yourself space to build and explore your online world, and curate it by unfollowing people who don’t bring joy or unsubscribing from advertisements that don’t align with what you are trying to build.

Study Objectives & Methods 

Social Media Use and Mental Health among Young Adults

Chloe Berryman, Christopher J. Ferguson, Charles Negy

Published in Springer Science and Business Media, 2017

The goal of this study is to determine how much social media affects young adults’ mental health. The researchers found a weak correlation between mental health and using social media, as the ability to interact with peers seemed to outweigh mental health influences. Yet if social media was used negatively, specifically when utilising vaguebooking. The users were more likely to experience “loneliness and suicidal thoughts” because they feel like an outcast in their social spheres.

The study contained 467 undergraduate students at a university in the United States. Of the 467 participants, 335 females and 130 males responded, and 2 were left unanswered. Due to the majority of participants being female, this is a limiting factor in the study. The survey’s variables of likeness are determined by a Likert scale. The variables covered were: vaguebooking, time spent on social media, social media importance, mental health symptoms, social support, parent-child relationship, social anxiety, histrionic symptoms, needing to belong, loneliness, empathy, and socially desirable responding.