Overall, women experience more stress than men.
The average American adult scored 10.2 out of 30 on the PSS. One of the starkest contrasts in our survey was between the level of reported stress experienced by men and women. On average, women report experiencing significantly higher levels of stress than men. The average women scores 10.5 on the PSS while the average man scores 9.8.13 On average, men reported stress levels that were 7% lower than for women.
There are other demographic characteristics that are related to stress. On average, older adults, and those who are employed tend to have less stress.
How we studied psychological stress and technology use
In the survey, respondents were asked about their use of social networking sites: We asked people about the frequency with which they use different social media platforms, such as Facebook (used by 71% of internet users in this sample), Twitter (used by 18% of internet users), Instagram (17%), Pinterest (21%), and LinkedIn (22%).
Given the popularity of Facebook, we also asked very specific questions about users’ networks and what people do on that platform: number of friends (the average was 329), frequency of status updates (the average was 8 times per month), frequency of “Liking” other people’s content (the average was 34 times per month), frequency of commenting (the average was 22 times per month), and how often they send private messages (the average was 15 times per month).14
We asked people how many digital pictures they share online (the average was 4 times per week), how many people they email (9 people/day), and how many emails they send and receive (an average of 25 per day). We also asked about their use of their mobile phone; the number of messages they text (an average of 32 messages per day), pictures sharing via text (an average of 2 pictures per day), and the number of people that they text with (an average of 4 people per day).
Given the important differences in stress levels based on age, education, marital status, and employment status, we used regression analysis to control for these factors. By using regression analysis we are able determine the degree to which technology use is specifically associated with stress by holding demographic characteristics constant. Since men and women tend to experience stress differently, we ran separate analyses for each sex.
Those who are more educated and those who are married or living with a partner report lower levels of stress.
We found that women, and those with fewer years of education, tend to report higher levels of stress, while those who are married or living with a partner report less psychological stress (see Table 1 in Appendix A). For women (but not men), those who are younger, and those who are employed in paid work outside of the home also tend to experience less stress.
The frequency of internet and social media use has no direct relationship to stress in men. For women, the use of some technologies is tied to lower stress.
For men, there is no relationship between psychological stress and frequent use of social media, mobile phones, or the internet more broadly. Men who use these technologies report similar levels of stress when compared with non-users.
For women, there is evidence that tech use is tied to modestly lower levels of stress. Specifically, the more pictures women share through their mobile phones, the more emails they send and receive, and the more frequently they use Twitter, the lower their reported stress. However, with the exception of Twitter, for the average person, the relationship between stress and these technologies is relatively small. Women who are heavier participants in these activities report less stress. Compared with a woman who does not use these technologies, a women who uses Twitter several times per day, sends or receives 25 emails per day, and shares two digital pictures through her mobile phone per day, scores 21% lower on our stress measure than a woman who does not use these technologies at all.
From this survey we are not able to definitively determine why frequent uses of some technologies are related to lower levels of reported stress for women. Existing studies have found that social sharing of both positive and negative events can be associated with emotional well-being and that women tend to share their emotional experiences with a wider range of people than do men.15 Sharing through email, sending text messages of pictures of events shortly after they happen, and expressing oneself through the small snippets of activity allowed by Twitter, may provide women with a low-demand and easily accessible coping mechanism that is not experienced or taken advantage of by men. It is also possible that the use of these media replaces activities or allows women to reorganize activities that would otherwise be more stressful. Previous Pew Research reports have also documented that social media users also tend to report higher levels of perceived social support. It could be that technology use leads to higher levels of perceived social support, which in turn moderates, or reduces stress, and subsequently reduces people’s risk for the physical diseases and psychological problems that often accompany stress.16
Awareness of Other People’s Stressful Life Events and Social Media Use
This report pays particular attention to social stress. This kind of stress comes from exposure to stressful life events. It is not directly a measure of whether someone feels that their own life is overloaded. Rather, it assesses people’s stress by understanding their social environment.17 Those who experience stressful life events often suffer a range of negative physical outcomes, including physical illness and lower mental health.18
It is possible that technology users — especially those who use social media — are more aware of stressful events in the lives of their friends and family. This increased awareness of stressful events in other people’s lives may contribute to the stress people have in their own lives.
Previous Pew Research reports have documented that social media users tend to perceivehigher levels of social support in their networks. They also have a greater awareness of the resources within their network of relationships — on and offline. This awareness has generally been perceived as a social benefit. Individuals who are aware of the things that are happening with their friends and the informal resources available to them through their social ties have more social capital. The extra flows of personal information in social media, what we have termed “pervasive awareness,” are one of the potential benefits of digital technologies.19 However, it is also possible that this heightened awareness comes with a cost.
We wanted to know if the awareness afforded by the use of digital technologies was limited to an awareness of what others could provide (social capital), or if it also included an awareness of the problems and stressful events that take place in the lives of friends, family, and acquaintances. Such awareness is not inherently negative. In fact, an awareness of the problems and hurdles faced by others is a precondition of empathy,20a dimension of social intelligence (social interest),21 and facilitates the provision of social support. However, awareness can also have an emotional impact – a "cost of caring."22
To measure awareness of other people’s stress we asked participants if they knew someone – other than themselves – who experienced any of a dozen major life events in the past 12 months. We additionally asked if the person(s) the event happened to was someone close to them (a strong tie), or an acquaintance whom they were not very close with (a weak tie), or both. Our list was composed of major life events that are known sources of stress in people's lives.23
The survey findings were that in the previous 12 months:
- 57% of adults said they know someone who had started a new job
- 56% know someone who had moved or changed homes
- 54% know someone who had become pregnant, given birth, or adopted a child
- 50% knew someone who had been hospitalized or experienced a serious accident or injury
- 50% knew someone who had become engaged or married
- 42% knew someone who had been fired or laid off
- 36% knew someone who had experienced the death of a child, partner, or spouse
- 36% knew someone who had a child move out of the house or move back into the house
- 31% knew someone who had gone through a marital separation or divorce
- 26% knew someone who had experienced a demotion or pay cut at work
- 22% knew someone who had been accused of or arrested for a crime
- 22% knew someone who had been the victim of a robbery or physical assault
Unsurprisingly, given that most people have few close social ties compared with the number of acquaintances they have, for all of the events we queried, people were more likely to know a weak tie (an acquaintance) than a strong tie who had experienced one of these stressful events.
The average adult in our sample knew people who had experienced 5 of the 12 events that we asked about.
How we studied awareness of stressful events in other people’s lives
As with our analysis of psychological stress, regression analysis was used to test if the use of different digital technologies was related to higher or lower levels of awareness of stressful events in other people’s lives. This allows us to determine the role of different technologies in helping different users be aware of stressful events in others’ lives, controlling for likely differences in awareness that are related to demographic factors such as age, education, race, marital and employment status.
Knowing that the sexes tend to be very different in their awareness of stressful event in the lives of those around them, we further divided our analysis into a comparison of women and men. We also anticipated that some technologies might be more commonly used for communication with close social ties, and primarily provide for an awareness of major events in the lives of close friends and family, while others may be more suited for awareness of events in the lives of looser acquaintances (Appendix A: Table 2).
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