Associations between youth’s daily social media use and well-being are mediated by upward comparisons

Studies examining the associations between social media use and subjective well-being have revealed inconsistent results and mainly refer to the between-person level. We conducted a 14-day diary study among 200 youths ages 10 to 14 to examine within- and between-person associations of social media use (Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube), subjective well-being (positive/negative self-worth, positive/negative affect), and upward social comparisons (general impression of others being better off). Multilevel structural equation models showed that social media use was linked to lower positive and higher negative self-worth on a daily basis, and that upward social comparisons were linked to diminished subjective well-being on all dimensions. Furthermore, our findings were consistent with (partial) mediation of the effect of social media use on subjective well-being by upward social comparisons on the between- and within-person levels. Youths’ feelings that others are better off than themselves may help explain part of the heterogeneity of previous findings.


Web links to the author's journal account have been redacted from the decision letters as indicated to maintain confidentiality 28th Mar 23
Dear Dr Irmer, Thank you for your patience during the peer-review process.Your manuscript titled "The Daily Reminder That Others are Better off: The Role of Upward Comparisons in the Link Between Children's Everyday Social Media Use and Well-Being" has now been seen by 3 reviewers, and I include their comments at the end of this message.They find your work of interest, but raised some important points.We are interested in the possibility of publishing your study in Communications Psychology, but would like to consider your responses to these concerns and assess a revised manuscript before we make a final decision on publication.
We therefore invite you to revise and resubmit your manuscript, along with a point-by-point response to the reviewers.Please highlight all changes in the manuscript text file.
Reviewers #1 and #2 provided full length reports, while Reviewer #3 was contacted to provided feedback only on two issues on which the reports were in disagreement.This is why their feedback appears shorter.
Editorially, we consider it important that you address the reviewer's concerns regarding the measurement of social comparison.Please provide more detail on the measurement including greater specificity on what is being measured and how it affects your interpretation of the findings.Reviewers 2 and 3 also note the need to provide stronger rationale and support for your choice of moderator variables and age-range.As suggested by Reviewer 2, please make sure to incorporate Midgley et al., 2021 into your literature review and discussion.Last, we consider it important that you further discuss the limitations of your methods and findings.
Please avoid any novelty claims (describing the work as "novel", "first", "unprecedented", etc.), and the use of causal or mechanistic language to describe correlational data.
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In this manuscript, "The daily reminder that others are better off: The role of upward comparisons in the link between children's everyday social media use and well-being," the authors examine the between-and within-person associations between social media use, upward comparisons, and wellbeing (self-evaluations and affect) in children and adolescents using a 14-day daily diary design.Although the authors address an important question, examine this question in an important sample, use an ambitious design, and have done a great job explaining their analytical strategy, I have a number of concerns about the manuscript with regards to its contribution to the literature and some methodological issues.
1. Overall, the contribution of the manuscript to the literature is not as large as it could.Many of the findings presented in this manuscript have been tested and found in older samples (first-year undergraduate students and adults) using superior methods by Midgley et al. (2021).For example, in the present study, the authors measured upward comparisons in general and cannot be certain that social media use triggered these upward comparisons.Indeed, the authors even note that a plausible third variable could be social interactions with peers, which could lead to an overestimation in upward comparisons.This is consistent with past experience sampling studies showing that young adults compare themselves to their friends most often in daily life and often make upward comparisons in daily life (Wheeler & Miyake, 1992;Midgley et al., 2021).In contrast, Midgley et al. (2021) used an experience sampling design that asked participants whether they made a social comparison, the direction of the comparison, and in what context they made the comparison, which allowed them to directly link social media use to social comparisons and look at whether comparisons made on social media differed from comparisons made in other contexts.Midgley et al. (2021) also examine these associations at both the within-person and between-person levels in multiple studies; this is one of the key contributions that the authors claim they make in their current study.Furthermore, the current study relies on a correlational design; thus, the evidence is limited in terms of determining a causal order.The authors acknowledge that they do not have strong evidence for the proposed causal order in their study and that other causal orders are possible.The authors also do not test other potential causal orders.In contrast, Midgley et al. (2021) demonstrated that there is a bidirectional effect between self-esteem and upward comparisons on social media, such that social media use leads to more frequent upward comparisons which decreases self-evaluations, and lower self-esteem predicts more extreme upward comparisons (i.e., comparisons in which there is a larger discrepancy between the self and the superior other), which predicts greater decreases in self-evaluations.Moreover, Midgley et al. (2021) used an experimental design to show that social media use (vs.not using social media) does predict a greater likelihood of making an upward comparison and that in turn predicts decreased self-evaluations.This is the same mediation model that the authors present in the current manuscript.Consequently, the evidence presented in the current study is weaker than existing evidence.Although I strongly agree that it is important to examine these effects in younger samples, it is unclear why what Midgley et al. (2021) found would not also be true for younger samples.In fact, the authors suggest that these effects should be larger in younger samples because younger individuals have difficulty determining whether information on the Internet is valid relative to older peers.Given that existing research has found that these associations exist at both the between-and within-person levels, the present study is a replication of this work in a younger sample with lessthan-ideal method, limiting the present study's contribution to the literature.Midgley, C., Thai, S., Lockwood, P., Kovacheff, C. & Page-Gould, E. (2021).When every day is a high school reunion: Social media comparisons and self-esteem.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,121, 2. The authors identify a few potential moderators but do not explain their rationale for why these specific moderators would moderate the effects or why these moderators would be of interest to examine.Of note, given extensive media coverage regarding how social media use is particularly harmful to girls, it is surprising that this gender difference was not found in the data and not addressed by the authors at all.Furthermore, the authors then noted that the moderators they chose may not have been well-suited for testing these questions due to various reasons (e.g., low reliability, not tapping the relevant aspects of problematic social media use).
3. It is also unclear why the authors examined the specific age range that they did.Is this sample particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of social media?Are they undergoing important transitions that would be negatively affected by social media use?The current justification that these effects have not been examined in younger samples is insufficient and more justification is needed to understand the contributions of this research.
4. The authors did not describe the scale used for the upward comparison items, making it difficult to interpret the findings.The overall low means suggest that upward comparisons were relatively infrequent.Moreover, it is unclear what the authors mean by stronger upward comparisons.Do they mean these upward comparisons are more impactful?Do they mean that participants viewed a greater discrepancy between themselves and the other people?Do they mean the participants made more comparisons?5. Another problem associated with using a global measure of upward comparisons is that they may not accurately reflect the degree to which people were engaging in actual comparison activity (Gerber et al. 2018).For example, when individuals feel worse (i.e., more negative affect), they may think that everyone else is doing better than them without making any comparisons at all.The items used by the authors in the current study and the correlational design allow this explanation to be a plausible, alternative explanation.Given this alternative explanation, the data presented in this manuscript do not provide strong evidence for their conclusions.
Reviewer #2 (Remarks to the Author): Review of: COMMSPSYCHOL-23-0026-T Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript, detailing the between-and within-subjects effects of daily social media use on aspects related to child and adolescent well-being.I have some comments that I hope are helpful and constructive to the authors.In short, though, I found this manuscript to be clear and well-written, the design and analysis important and well-conducted, and the findings have the opportunity to add to the literature in this research area.1.In the introduction, it would be helpful to add a bit more on what you mean by the 'heterogeneity of studies' -I knew what the authors meant as I do research in this area, but I think one line or two might make this more clear for all readers.2. On page 5, what do the authors mean by 'stable differences'?3. Overall, I felt that the part on potential moderators to be very underdeveloped.This first shows up in the literature review when the authors mention that 'potential moderators' would be considered -but the reader does not find out which variables will be considered until the method, and even then, there is never an argument as to why these variables should be considered.4. I think the authors did a good job of being clear when they are citing research on adolescents and when they are citing research on young adults or adults, but I would ask them to check the entire manuscript for this.It is fine to cite research on young adults, but given some of the developmental arguments they are making, it would be helpful to be clear about when the authors are citing research from these populations.5.The authors could do more in the front end to clarify if they are conceptualizing and/or operationalizing social comparison at the state and trait level.Given that it is a mediator, I assumed it would be at the state level, but the authors then also measure it at the trait level as a moderator.In addition, it would be helpful to be clear whether the cited literature in this area conceptualized and operationalized it as a state or trait variable.6.The authors write at multiple points that research 'in children's and adolescents' everyday lives is scarce' -what does this mean, exactly, and why is it important?I was not clear on this.7. Can the authors provide the exact wording for the affective well-being measure?8.I do not think this is a fatal flaw, and I'd like to see the authors respond to this, but given my concern about social comparison as a state or trait variable, how do the authors see this variable as operationalized as being state in nature?And given the design of the study, it is a little concerning that the adolescent is responding to these all at the end of the day.Given the authors are linking social media use with social comparison (and measuring both only at the end of the day), I would think the authors would have wanted to clarify that the social comparison was happening when on social media -otherwise, an adolescent could have socially compared themselves quite a bit at school, but in the analysis, it would look like their social media use were the antecedent of that social comparison, and not some event at school.I know the authors respond to this somewhat in the limitations section, but I think they could do a bit more to explicate how this choice might influence their findings pertaining to this variable.9. Self-control failure and social media disorder seem like they would be at least moderately correlated, which made me wonder why both were selected as moderators, and in general, how these variables were selected to be moderators.10.I was surprised that the mean for the social media use variables was fairly low -what do the authors make of this? 11.I realized that the authors refer to the variable as 'smartphone social media use' -but I am not sure this is quite right.The participants completed the surveys on a smartphone, but they could use social media on any device, right?12.I think that section 4.1 could probably move to online supplementary files -while important, I did not immediately see what this added to the main papers and findings.13.I think one big thing missing from discussion in the paper is COVID.Again, I do not think this is a fatal flaw, but these data were collected during the COVID pandemic, in a time when adolescents lives were still at least somewhat upended by the pandemic.Given that the authors make a point that other studies show inconsistent relations (but this study shows fairly clear relations) one explanation could be a function of the context of COVID.In other words, social media use might be linked to poorer well-being because of the unique stressors of the pandemic.I think it would be worth the authors discussing this further in the discussion section.14.I felt like the paragraph in the discussion on active and passive social media use was not very well integrated (I do not think the authors had discussed this distinction to this point).I also felt it was a bit too speculative, so I would recommend cutting this.15.At multiple points, the authors write that they go beyond previous findings by examining younger adolescents.Is there a developmental reason to expect that the relations of these variables among 10-14-year-olds would differ from those of 16-18-year-olds, for example?If so, this would be important to add.If not, I think the authors could spend a bit more less time making this distinction.
16. Finally, the authors frame the discussion of the moderators as being careful about focusing on the one significant interaction.I would advise to frame it more as --these results are pretty consistent!I think that's the more noteworthy finding here.And if the authors focus more on why and how they selected these moderating variables, then I think this finding (or lack thereof in terms of significant interactions) will matter even more.
Reviewer #3 (Remarks to the Author): There are not many studies done on social comparison using a daily diary approach, and this study adds to the existing literature such as Midgley et al., (2021).
The global measure of upward comparisons might better be described as measuring how people feel after the comparison rather than how much they compare to those who are better off.The scale could be better framed as measuring negative social comparison vs. upward social comparison.
The measurement of social media use is undifferentiated (as opposed to looking into active or passive social media use), which limits what we can learn from the findings.
Dear Reviewers, Thank you very much for your evaluation of our manuscript and the interesting and helpful comments.In addressing your suggestions and concerns, we believe the manuscript has improved considerably.
For you to be able to follow the changes we made, we used the track changes feature of Microsoft Word and uploaded this file "Manuscript" as "Revised Manuscript -Marked Up".Additionally, for better readability, we uploaded a file "Article_not marked up" as "Article file".In our responses we inserted the new or adjusted paragraphs and included the page number (referring to the revised version with mark ups) to indicate precisely where changes were made.In doing the revision, we noticed an error in calculating the standard deviations of the three items assessing social media use.We corrected this in Table 1.
In the following, we describe point by point how we responded to your specific concerns: Responses to Reviewer 1's comments: R1.0In this manuscript, "The daily reminder that others are better off: The role of upward comparisons in the link between children's everyday social media use and well-being," the authors examine the between-and within-person associations between social media use, upward comparisons, and well-being (self-evaluations and affect) in children and adolescents using a 14day daily diary design.Although the authors address an important question, examine this question in an important sample, use an ambitious design, and have done a great job explaining their analytical strategy, I have a number of concerns about the manuscript with regards to its contribution to the literature and some methodological issues.RESPONSE: Thank you for the positive feedback on our study and the interesting suggestions that helped us to improve our manuscript.
R1.1 1. Overall, the contribution of the manuscript to the literature is not as large as it could.Many of the findings presented in this manuscript have been tested and found in older samples (first-year undergraduate students and adults) using superior methods by Midgley et al. (2021).For example, in the present study, the authors measured upward comparisons in general and cannot be certain that social media use triggered these upward comparisons.Indeed, the authors even note that a plausible third variable could be social interactions with peers, which could lead to an overestimation in upward comparisons.This is consistent with past experience sampling studies showing that young adults compare themselves to their friends most often in daily life and often make upward  2021) also examine these associations at both the within-person and between-person levels in multiple studies; this is one of the key contributions that the authors claim they make in their current study.Furthermore, the current study relies on a correlational design; thus, the evidence is limited in terms of determining a causal order.The authors acknowledge that they do not have strong evidence for the proposed causal order in their study and that other causal orders are possible.The authors also do not test other potential causal orders.In contrast, Midgley et al. (2021) demonstrated that there is a bidirectional effect between self-esteem and upward comparisons on social media, such that social media use leads to more frequent upward comparisons which decreases self-evaluations, and lower self-esteem predicts more extreme upward comparisons (i.e., comparisons in which there is a larger discrepancy between the self and the superior other), which predicts greater decreases in self-evaluations.Moreover, Midgley et al. ( 2021) used an experimental design to show that social media use (vs.not using social media) does predict a greater likelihood of making an upward comparison and that in turn predicts decreased self-evaluations.This is the same mediation model that the authors present in the current manuscript.Consequently, the evidence presented in the current study is weaker than existing evidence.Although I strongly agree that it is important to examine these effects in younger samples, it is unclear why what Midgley et al. (2021) found would not also be true for younger samples.In fact, the authors suggest that these effects should be larger in younger samples because younger individuals have difficulty determining whether information on the Internet is valid relative to older peers.Given that existing research has found that these associations exist at both the between-and within-person levels, the present study is a replication of this work in a younger sample with less-than-ideal method, limiting the present study's contribution to the literature.RESPONSE: We thank the Reviewer for providing us with this very interesting study that we are happy to integrate in our manuscript.We extracted the specific concerns of the Reviewer and respond to them point by point in the following.
(1) For example, in the present study, the authors measured upward comparisons in general and cannot be certain that social media use triggered these upward comparisons.We agree that we assessed upward social comparisons as the general impression that others have a better life, are prettier or happier, or do/have cooler stuff (see also our response to R1.5).The alternative would have been to directly refer to social media as did Boer et al (2021, p. 4), for instance: "Respondents indicated, when viewing their peers' messages, photos, or movies on social network sites, how often they thought 'He or she does more fun things than I do', 'He or she has more friends than I do' …".We were, however, interested in whether social media use is related to the overall impression that others are better off.This represents an extension of previous research and is why we measured global upward social comparisons and then, in the analyses, predicted this feeling by social media use.In our within-person analyses, we analyze whether variables (i.e., social media use and upward social comparisons) fluctuate simultaneously across time.Therefore, we were able to identify that on days children and young adolescents used more social media than usually, they also reported stronger upward social comparisons.Hence, at least part of the daily impression that others are better off seem to be associated with daily social media use -and to investigate this was one aim of the present study.We apologize for not having presented that clearly in the manuscript.We added this in the section "The Present Study" (pp.14-15) and shortened respective paragraph in the Methods section: "We assessed upward social comparisons as the general impression that others have a better life (e.g., are prettier, more popular, and happier or do and have cooler stuff).Notably, upward social comparisons scales used in other studies directly referred to social media (i.e., "Respondents indicated, when viewing their peers' messages, photos, or movies on social network sites, how often they thought 'He or she does more fun things than I do'", Boer et al., 2021, p. 4; "When I read news feeds (or see others' photos), I often think that others are having a better life than me", Lee, 2014, p. 256).One aim of the present study was to extend previous research by examining whether days with higher social media use were days on which children and young adolescents had a stronger impression of others having a better life, in general." We also discuss on this further in the section 4.2 (p.38): "Furthermore, we deliberately measured general upward social comparisons, as opposed to different work that has assessed upward social comparisons triggered by social media use (see Boer et al., 2021;Lee, 2014).Hence, finding that on days children and young adolescents used more social media than usually, they also reported stronger upward social comparisons implies that at least part of the general daily impression that others are better off seem to be associated with daily social media use." However, we acknowledge that upward social comparisons might have been induced by third variables in the present study.We now elaborate on this further in the Limitations (pp.43-44): "And fifth, prior studies suggest that the associations among social media use, upward social comparisons, and subjective well-being might be reciprocal instead of one-directional (Boer et al., 2021;Frison & Eggermont, 2016a, 2017;Midgley et a., 2021;Rousseau et al., 2017;Shin et al., 2022).For instance, it is also possible that elevated negative affect induces upward social comparisons, in that individuals have the feeling that everyone else is doing better than them.To deepen our understanding of the assumed complex interplay between social media use, upward social comparisons, and subjective well-being, future studies should aim at examining the potential reciprocal relations on the within-day and across-day levels in children's and young adolescents' everyday lives." (2) Midgley et al. (2021) also examine these associations at both the within-person and betweenperson levels in multiple studies; this is one of the key contributions that the authors claim they make in their current study.We thank the Reviewer for suggesting to include the study by Midgley et al. (2021) in our manuscript and to clearly present the additional value of our study.We incorporated the study at multiple sections within the manuscript; however, please note that within the entire manuscript, we focused on research with children and adolescents while limiting our references to studies with adults to a minimum.
In section 1.2 "Upward Social Comparisons" and 1.2.1 "Upward Social Comparisons as a Mediator" p. 7: "Thus, they tend to perceive other's idealistic self-presentations as reality and automatically compare them with their own physical appearance, popularity, or leisure activities (Midgley et al., 2021)" pp.7-8: "In line with this, recent research with undergraduates demonstrated that browsing social media primarily evoked upward social comparisons as compared to downward or lateral comparisons that are considered less harmful (Midgley et al., 2021).Furthermore, the authors showed that social comparisons that were made while using social media were more extremely upward than social comparisons occurring in different contexts.These upward social comparisons on social media were then found to be negatively associated with state self-esteem as well as life satisfaction after having used social media (Midgley et al., 2021)."p. 9: "For instance, Choi (2022) found that higher passive Instagram use was related to lower life satisfaction via upward social comparisons and Midgley et al. (2021) demonstrated that social media use was associated with feeling worse about oneself via upward social comparisons." We also included the work by Midgley et al. (2021) in the Discussion: p. 39: "Building on previous work (e.g., Burnell et al., 2019;Midgley et al., 2021;Verduyn et al., 2020) and the results of the present study showing that both, social media use and upward social comparisons were associated with subjective well-being but also with one another, we examined upward social comparisons as a potential mechanism linking social media use to subjective well-being."p. 39: "These findings are in line with between-person research with adults, showing upward social comparisons to mediate the relation among social media use and self-esteem or depressive symptoms (Midgley et al., 2021;Pang, 2021;Vogel et al., 2014;Wang et al., 2017)."

p. 43:
"Fourth, our study relies on a correlational design, which is why the evidence is limited in terms of determining a causal order.We decided which variables should serve as predictors and which as outcomes based on existing (experimental) research (e.g., Midgley et al. 2021); however, from our analyses, we cannot conclude whether upward social comparisons caused higher negative affect, for instance, or whether higher negative affect caused stronger upward social comparisons."p. 43: "And fifth, prior studies suggest that the associations among social media use, upward social comparisons, and subjective well-being might be reciprocal instead of one-directional (Boer et al., 2021;Frison & Eggermont, 2016a, 2017;Midgley et al., 2021;Rousseau et al., 2017;Shin et al., 2022)." One meaningful difference between the study by Midgley et al. (2021) and our study is that Midgley et al. examined undergraduates and middle-aged adults, whereas we examined children and young adolescents.In response to this comment and other comments, we now elaborate more clearly why we targeted the age group of ten-to 14-year-olds (see response to R1.3).For instance, our literature review revealed only two studies examining a potential mediation of the link between social media use and well-being via upward social comparisons in younger samples.Notably, these two studies revealed inconsistent results, as Niu et al. (2018) showed upward social comparisons to fully mediate the association between Qzone use and depression in 12-to 18-year-olds, whereas Boer et al. (2021) found no evidence for upward social comparisons to mediate the longitudinal link between problematic social media use and depressive symptoms or life satisfaction in 10-to 16-year-olds (see also Boer et al., 2022).Therefore, it is still unclear whether upward social comparisons represent a mechanism linking social media use to well-being in children and young adolescents.Moreover, both these studies (Boer et al., 2021;Niu et al., 2018) did not use a microlongitudinal or daily diary approach to examine the research questions.However, as elaborated in Molenaar (2004), associations found on the betweenperson level cannot simply be assumed to apply on a within-person level, likewise can results found in the laboratory not simply be transferred to real-life conditions (e.g., Ebner-Priemer et al., 2009).Due to these reasons we consider important that further research addresses the daily mechanisms linking social media use to well-being in children and adolescents.(3) Furthermore, the current study relies on a correlational design; thus, the evidence is limited in terms of determining a causal order.
[…] The authors also do not test other potential causal orders.
We agree that our analyses do not allow to determine causality of effects.We decided which variables to be the predictor and which the outcome based on previous (experimental) research.However, we now acknowledge that causality cannot be inferred from our analyses in more detail in the Limitations (p.43, see below).We also refer to potential bi-directional effects in the Limitations (pp.43-44, see below): "Fourth, our study relies on a correlational design, which is why the evidence is limited in terms of determining a causal order.We decided which variables should serve as predictors and which as outcomes based on existing (experimental) research (e.g., Midgley et al. 2021); however, from our analyses, we cannot conclude whether upward social comparisons caused higher negative affect, for instance, or whether higher negative affect caused stronger upward social comparisons.For the indirect effects in the mediation model to be meaningfully interpreted in terms of a causal mediation model, there are two conditions that have to be met for the indirect effects in the mediation model to be meaningfully interpreted in terms of a causal mediation model.First, a temporal sequence of constructs has to be assumed, and second, there must be no unobserved third variables responsible for the observed associations.Drawing such inferences from observational data is difficult and we cannot rule out the possibility that there were other relevant common causes of our observed associations.For instance, social interactions in children's real lives could represent such a variable leading to an overestimation of the indirect effect: When, on certain days, children and young adolescents notice that peers look great at school, have the latest stuff and brand clothes, that they are popular and admired, this plausibly induces upward social comparisons and, likewise, may reduce individual's self-worth." "And fifth, prior studies suggest that the associations among social media use, upward social comparisons, and subjective well-being might be reciprocal instead of one-directional (Boer et al., 2021;Frison & Eggermont, 2016a, 2017;Midgley et al., 2021;Rousseau et al., 2017;Shin et al., 2022).For instance, it is also possible that elevated negative affect induces upward social comparisons, in that individuals have the feeling that everyone else is doing better than them.To deepen our understanding of the assumed complex interplay between social media use, upward social comparisons, and subjective well-being, future studies should aim at examining the potential reciprocal relations on the within-day and across-day levels in children's and young adolescents' everyday lives." (4) This is the same mediation model that the authors present in the current manuscript.Consequently, the evidence presented in the current study is weaker than existing evidence.

Although I strongly agree that it is important to examine these effects in younger samples, it is unclear why what Midgley et al. (2021) found would not also be true for younger samples. […]
Given that existing research has found that these associations exist at both the between-and within-person levels, the present study is a replication of this work in a younger sample with lessthan-ideal method, limiting the present study's contribution to the literature.
It is true that we examined the same mediation model as Midgley et al. (2021).We also acknowledge that presenting four studies in a paper denotes a significant contribution to the literature.However, we hope that we now comprehensibly presented our motivation to examine the relations in a younger sample.We agree that we would not have expected the significant associations found in Midgley et al. (2021) to be insignificant in this younger sample; yet, we believe that empirical evidence is needed to support (or challenge) respective assumptions.Besides, in the face of the current replication crisis of the social sciences, we believe that replications are of value and strongly needed to strengthen (or challenge) existing findings.This is particularly true for the present topic (social media use and wellbeing), as previous research has revealed highly inconsistent results.For instance, we found only two studies examining a potential mediation of the link between social media use and well-being via upward social comparisons in younger samples.Notably, these two studies revealed inconsistent results, as Niu et al. ( 2018) showed upward social comparisons to fully mediate the association between Qzone use and depression in 12-to 18-year-olds, whereas Boer et al. (2021) found no evidence for upward social comparisons to mediate the longitudinal link between problematic social media use and depressive symptoms or life satisfaction in 10-to 16-year-olds (see also Boer et al., 2022).Hence, further research, such as the present study, is needed to examine the associations of interest in children and adolescents.

R1.2
The authors identify a few potential moderators but do not explain their rationale for why these specific moderators would moderate the effects or why these moderators would be of interest to examine.Of note, given extensive media coverage regarding how social media use is particularly harmful to girls, it is surprising that this gender difference was not found in the data and not addressed by the authors at all.Furthermore, the authors then noted that the moderators they chose may not have been well-suited for testing these questions due to various reasons (e.g., low reliability, not tapping the relevant aspects of problematic social media use).RESPONSE: We apologize that we did not comprehensibly justify our motivations for examining ten to 14-year-olds and for investigating the specific moderators.In this revision, we have elucidated the reasons more thoroughly in a new Section 1.3 "Potential Moderators" (pp.9-11) and also extended the paragraph in the Discussion on this matter, addressing the insignificant moderation of gender (p.42).
Please note that in response to another comment (see response to R2.9), we now do not examine problematic social media use as a potential moderator anymore.Furthermore, in response to comment R2.16, we now highlight more clearly that having found only one significant moderation also points to highly consistent results (see paragraph below).
In the Theoretical Background (pp.9-11): For instance, Nesi and Prinstein (2015) found that female adolescents showed a stronger link between technology-based social comparison and feedback-seeking with depressive symptoms than male adolescents.Furthermore, the intensity of social media use at age ten predicted well-being in adolescence for females, but not for males (Booker et al., 2018).Therefore, we included gender as a potential moderator variable, expecting girls to be more susceptible to the effects of social media and upward social comparisons than boys.
Besides gender, prior studies with adults also motivated us to examine self-control failure with regard to social media use.Considering problematic social media use as a continuum ranging from mild problems to limit social media use to extremely problematic (i.e., addiction-like) social media use, the construct of self-control failure falls within the lower side of the continuum.Hence, it assesses the degree to which individuals use social media platforms although it stands in conflict with other goals as well as the degree to which individuals use their time efficiently or delay other important duties due to social media (Du et al., 2018).Self-control failure related to social media use can be considered a predictive factor of later social media addiction (Li et al., 2014).Previous research has shown that high-intense users exhibit stronger associations between social media use and well-being.For instance, Boer et al. (2021) showed that problematic social media use was related to depressive symptoms and (negatively) to life satisfaction, but that intensity of social media use was unrelated to these variables in ten-to 16-year-olds.Moreover, work that has reviewed existing evidence with individuals of all ages concludes that self-control serves as a significant moderator of the effects of media use on well-being (Hofmann et al., 2016;Reinecke et al., 2022).Therefore, we decided to explore whether social media self-control failure moderates the associations of interest in the present study.Furthermore, there is evidence showing that individuals significantly differ in their general tendency to engage in social comparisons and that such differences moderate the effects of social media on wellbeing (De Vries et al., 2018;Kleemans et al., 2018;Vogel et al., 2015;Yang, 2016).In an experimental study with girls aged 14 to 18 years, those with a stronger tendency to compare themselves to others were more negatively affected by viewing manipulated Instagram posts (i.e., reported lower body satisfaction) than those with a weaker tendency to engage in social comparisons (Kleemans et al., 2018).Similarly, Vogel et al. (2015)  RESPONSE: Thank you for pointing out that our motivation for examining ten to 14-year-olds has not been comprehensibly justified.In this revision, we have elucidated the reasons more thoroughly in Section 1.4 "The Present Study" (pp.11-12), while incorporating three more studies on this matter: "We targeted this age group due to several reasons.First, research has shown that by the age of ten, children mostly start using social media on smartphones (Hasebrink et al., 2019;Krebs & Rynkowski, 2019).However, it is also starting in middle childhood that individuals develop a sense of self and form their identities (Eccles, 1999).As this process is usually accompanied by social comparisons, these also become more and more important during this time (Eccles, 1999;Erikson, 1968).Social media platforms offer endless opportunities to compare to others, as users can follow and watch friends or strangers around the world, provoking comparisons with multiple persons in many aspects (Verduyn et al., 2020).Thus, the second reason we targeted children and adolescents ages ten to 14 was to examine the associations between social media use, upward social comparisons, and subjective well-being (e.g., self-esteem) in an era characterized by figuring out one's worth based on comparisons with others.
Third, previous research has suggested children to be particularly susceptible to the (negative) effects of media use (Booker et al., 2018;Liu et al., 2015), which has also been described as "developmental susceptibility" (Valkenburg & Peter, 2013, p. 227).For instance, high social media use in children (i.e., ten-year-olds) has been shown to have implications for subjective well-being in adolescence, especially for girls (Booker et al., 2018).Furthermore, in a meta-analysis, Liu et al. (2015) found that higher screen time was associated with a higher risk for developing depression in children from ten to 14 years of age, but not for those older than 14 years."The items were answered on a 5-point scale (1 = "not at all true" to 5 = "completely true").Hence, higher scores on this scale (i.e., referred to as stronger upward social comparisons in the following) indicate that children and young adolescents had the impression that others had a better life than themselves or were happier, prettier, or more popular, that is, they perceived a higher discrepancy between themselves and others." The wording of each item can also be found in Table 1, showing descriptive statistics of all items.We added this information in section 2.3.1 (p.16): "The wording and descriptive statistics of all items of daily measures are presented in Table 1." We agree that the mean levels of upward social comparisons were rather low.However, the intraclass correlations and intraindividual standard deviations show that there was variability between and within children, which is an important prerequisite for our analyses.Within-person analyses consider couplings between variables, that is, we analyzed whether or not variables fluctuated or varied simultaneously.For such analyses, the level of responses (how much participants agreed with the items) is of little relevance.

R1
.5 Another problem associated with using a global measure of upward comparisons is that they may not accurately reflect the degree to which people were engaging in actual comparison activity (Gerber et al. 2018).For example, when individuals feel worse (i.e., more negative affect), they may think that everyone else is doing better than them without making any comparisons at all.The items used by the authors in the current study and the correlational design allow this explanation to be a plausible, alternative explanation.Given this alternative explanation, the data presented in this manuscript do not provide strong evidence for their conclusions.RESPONSE: We understand the point raised by the Reviewer and agree that our correlational design does not allow to determine the causality of associations.
Yet, when planning our study and developing the items, we purposely decided to assess upward social comparisons as a global impression (see also our response to R1.1).The alternative would have been to directly refer to social media as did Boer et al (2021, p. 4), for instance: "Respondents indicated, when viewing their peers' messages, photos, or movies on social network sites, how often they thought 'He or she does more fun things than I do', 'He or she has more friends than I do' …".We were, however, interested in whether social media use is related to the overall impression that others are better off.This represents an extension of previous research and is why we measured global upward social comparisons and then, in the analyses, predicted this feeling by social media use.In our within-person analyses, we analyze whether variables (i.e., social media use and upward social comparisons) fluctuate simultaneously across time.Therefore, we were able to identify that on days children and young adolescents used more social media than usually, they also reported stronger upward social comparisons.Hence, at least part of the daily impression that others are better off seem to be associated with daily social media use.Nonetheless, we agree with the Reviewer that we cannot rule out that negative affect might also induce upward social comparisons.We now elaborate on this further in the Discussion: p. 38: "Furthermore, we deliberately measured general upward social comparisons, as opposed to different work that has assessed upward social comparisons triggered by social media use (see Boer et al., 2021;Lee, 2014).Hence, finding that on days children and young adolescents used more social media than usually, they also reported stronger upward social comparisons implies that at least part of the general daily impression that others are better off seem to be associated with daily social media use." pp. 43-44: "And fifth, prior studies suggest that the associations among social media use, upward social comparisons, and subjective well-being might be reciprocal instead of one-directional (Boer et al., 2021;Frison & Eggermont, 2016a, 2017;Midgley et al., 2021;Rousseau et al., 2017;Shin et al., 2022).For instance, it is also possible that elevated negative affect induces upward social comparisons, in that individuals have the feeling that everyone else is doing better than them.To deepen our understanding of the assumed complex interplay between social media use, upward social comparisons, and subjective well-being, future studies should aim at examining the potential reciprocal relations on the within-day and across-day levels in children's and young adolescents' everyday lives.""The authors highlighted the heterogeneity of studies, summarizing that some meta-analyses found small to moderate associations of social media use with higher levels of adolescent ill-being, while another meta-analyses found social media use to be unrelated to ill-being and others found weak associations with higher levels of well-being.Therefore, they called for within-person studies as well as mediation and moderator analyses that allow to shed light on the potential complex associations of social media use and well-being in youths."

R2.2 On page 5, what do the authors mean by 'stable differences'?
RESPONSE: In this paragraph, we aim at contrasting between-and within-person findings.Betweenperson findings are based on differences between individuals, whereas within-person findings refer to fluctuations of variables across time.For example, between-person differences in social media use reflect the degree to which individuals differ in their average levels of social media use whereas withinperson variations in social media use reflect the degree to which individuals' levels of social media use 11 deviate from their average level across situations.However, we agree that "stable" is somewhat misleading and therefore deleted this word while adding further clarifying information on p. 5: "In fact, it has recently been argued that the associations between social media use and well-being are mainly driven by differences between individuals (i.e., differences in the average levels of variables), while the effects within individuals across time are "small to negligible" (Johannes et al., 2022, p. 5)." R2.3 Overall, I felt that the part on potential moderators to be very underdeveloped.This first shows up in the literature review when the authors mention that 'potential moderators' would be considered -but the reader does not find out which variables will be considered until the method, and even then, there is never an argument as to why these variables should be considered.RESPONSE: We apologize that we did not comprehensibly justify our motivations for examining the specific moderators.In this revision, we have elucidated the reasons more thoroughly in a new Section 1.3 "Potential Moderators" (pp.9-11): "One aim of the present study was to identify person-level variables that moderate the associations between ( 1 For instance, Nesi and Prinstein (2015) found that female adolescents showed a stronger link between technology-based social comparison and feedback-seeking with depressive symptoms than male adolescents.Furthermore, the intensity of social media use at age ten predicted well-being in adolescence for females, but not for males (Booker et al., 2018).Therefore, we included gender as a potential moderator variable, expecting girls to be more susceptible to the effects of social media and upward social comparisons than boys.Besides gender, prior studies with adults also motivated us to examine self-control failure with regard to social media use.Considering problematic social media use as a continuum ranging from mild problems to limit social media use to extremely problematic (i.e., addiction-like) social media use, the construct of self-control failure falls within the lower side of the continuum.Hence, it assesses the degree to which individuals use social media platforms although it stands in conflict with other goals as well as the degree to which individuals use their time efficiently or delay other important duties due to social media (Du et al., 2018).Self-control failure related to social media use can be considered a predictive factor of later social media addiction (Li et al., 2014).Previous research has shown that high-intense users exhibit stronger associations between social media use and well-being.For instance, Boer et al. (2021) showed that problematic social media use was related to depressive symptoms and (negatively) to life satisfaction, but that intensity of social media use was unrelated to these variables in ten-to 16-year-olds.Moreover, work that has reviewed existing evidence with individuals of all ages concludes that self-control serves as a significant moderator of the effects of media use on well-being (Hofmann et al., 2016;Reinecke et al., 2022).Therefore, we decided to explore whether social media self-control failure moderates the associations of interest in the present study.Furthermore, there is evidence showing that individuals significantly differ in their general tendency to engage in social comparisons and that such differences moderate the effects of social media on wellbeing (De Vries et al., 2018;Kleemans et al., 2018;Vogel et al., 2015;Yang, 2016).In an experimental study with girls aged 14 to 18 years, those with a stronger tendency to compare themselves to others were more negatively affected by viewing manipulated Instagram posts (i.e., reported lower body satisfaction) than those with a weaker tendency to engage in social comparisons (Kleemans et al., 2018).Similarly, Vogel et al. (2015) conducted an experimental study and found that undergraduates with a strong tendency to compare themselves to others were more negatively affected by viewing others' Facebook profiles (i.e., reported lower self-esteem, lower affective well-being, and poorer self-perceptions) than undergraduates with a weaker tendency to compare themselves to others.Based on these studies that were mostly conducted with (young) adults, we investigated the general tendency to engage in social comparisons as another potential moderator in our study." Booker, C. L., Kelly, Y. J., & Sacker, A. ( 2018).Gender differences in the associations between age trends of social media interaction and well-being among 10-15 year olds in the UK.BMC Public Health, 18(1), 1-12.https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5220-4Hofmann, W., Reinecke, L., & Meier, A. (2016).Of sweet temptations and bitter aftertaste: Self-control as a moderator of the effects of media use on well-being.In The Routledge handbook of media use and well-being (pp. 211-222).Routledge.Kleemans, M., Daalmans, S., Carbaat, I., & Anschütz, D. (2018) R2.4I think the authors did a good job of being clear when they are citing research on adolescents and when they are citing research on young adults or adults, but I would ask them to check the entire manuscript for this.It is fine to cite research on young adults, but given some of the developmental arguments they are making, it would be helpful to be clear about when the authors are citing research from these populations.RESPONSE: We carefully checked the manuscript and added respective information on populations if necessary.We also made sure that all new paragraphs include this information.You may find three examples in the following (see pp. 5-6, p. 8, and p. 11).Thereby, we replaced a study with young adults by another study with adolescents (Kleemans et al., 2018).
"For instance, George et al. ( 2018) found social media use to be linked to same-day symptoms of inattention/hyperactivity and conduct disorder in 11-to 15-year-olds across a 30-day period of daily assessments." "Empirical research with adolescents supported this finding, showing that upward social comparisons on social media are associated with diminished well-being (e.g., Boer et al., 2021;Nesi & Prinstein, 2015;Rousseau et al., 2017;see also Meier & Johnson, 2022, for a cross-age review)." "In an experimental study with girls aged 14 to 18 years, those with a stronger tendency to compare themselves to others were more negatively affected by viewing manipulated Instagram posts (i.e., reported lower body satisfaction) than those with a weaker tendency to engage in social comparisons (Kleemans et al., 2018)."

R2.5
The authors could do more in the front end to clarify if they are conceptualizing and/or operationalizing social comparison at the state and trait level.Given that it is a mediator, I assumed it would be at the state level, but the authors then also measure it at the trait level as a moderator.In addition, it would be helpful to be clear whether the cited literature in this area conceptualized and operationalized it as a state or trait variable.RESPONSE: Thank you for raising this interesting point.A lot of research has been devoted on the question of whether traits, that is, rather time-invariant, stable characteristics of individuals or timevarying, unstable characteristics of situations are more important when predicting behaviors (e.g., Donnellan;Funder, 2008;Kenrick & Funder, 1988).Studies have shown that most constructs contain both, rather stable trait parts and fluctuating state parts.Thereby, constructs differ in the degree to which they contain the one of other component; hence, they could be classified into more "trait-like" (e.g., intelligence) and more "state-like" variables (e.g., mood).Interestingly, personality, which had been assumed to be a highly stable characteristic for a long time, has also been shown to comprise stable parts (see, e.g., special issue "New approaches towards conceptualizing and assessing personality" in the European Journal of Personality, 2020).Coming back to your question, we conceptualized upward social comparisons as a state when measuring it on a daily basis, using items such as "Today, I had the feeling that others have a better life than me" or "Today, I had the feeling that others are more popular than I am".With this scale, we assessed every day how much children and young adolescents had the feeling or impression that others were doing better than they are.We added more information on this on p. 17: "The items were answered on a 5-point scale (1 = "not at all true" to 5 = "completely true").Hence, higher scores on this scale (i.e., referred to as stronger upward social comparisons in the following) indicate that children and young adolescents had the impression that others had a better life than themselves or were happier, prettier, or more popular, that is, they perceived a higher discrepancy between themselves and others." However, we also assessed the trait component of social comparison using the German version of the well-established Iowa-Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure (INCOM) by Gibbons & Buunk (1999).This scale assesses individual's general tendency to compare with others, sample items are "I do not often compare myself to others (r)" or "I always like to know what others in a similar situation would do".Hence, compared to the state upward social comparison scale, the INCOM does not include a direction of comparison (i.e., upward or downward).
We clarified this when presenting the person-level measures on p. 18: "The scale assesses individual's general tendency to compare themselves with others." In the section on upward social comparisons in our manuscript, we mainly cited cross-sectional (or longitudinal, but not experience sampling) studies, which is why social comparison had been conceptualized and operationalized as a trait variable in the literature we referred to.As such, many studies (e.g., Kleemans et al., 2018;Vogel et al., 2015) used the Iowa-Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure (INCOM) by Gibbons & Buunk (1999) that we had also used as the trait measure.
One exception is the study by Midgley et al. (2021) who also conceptualized upward social comparisons as a state measure.In their experience sampling study, undergraduates were randomly prompted six times per day.In the surveys, they were then asked whether they had made a social comparison since the last survey and, in case participants indicated they had made a comparison, there were further questions (e.g., to whom they had compared).Hence, the authors also conceptualized upward social comparisons as a state, fluctuating over time.

R2.8 I do not think this is a fatal flaw, and I'd like to see the authors respond to this, but given my concern about social comparison as a state or trait variable, how do the authors see this variable
as operationalized as being state in nature?And given the design of the study, it is a little concerning that the adolescent is responding to these all at the end of the day.Given the authors are linking social media use with social comparison (and measuring both only at the end of the day), I would think the authors would have wanted to clarify that the social comparison was happening when on social media -otherwise, an adolescent could have socially compared themselves quite a bit at school, but in the analysis, it would look like their social media use were the antecedent of that social comparison, and not some event at school.I know the authors respond to this somewhat in the limitations section, but I think they could do a bit more to explicate how this choice might influence their findings pertaining to this variable.RESPONSE: Again, we thank the Reviewer for raising the interesting questions about social comparisons being state or trait in nature (see our response to R2.5).We agree with the Reviewer that it would have been nice to have multiple assessments of all variables per day.However, when planning our study, we had to weigh the benefit of multiple assessments against the burden of study participation.Verbeij et al. (2021) included retrospective surveys of time spent on social media in the previous week as well as daily experience sampling questions on the time spent social media in the previous hour.They found that the convergent validity of retrospective surveys and the experience sampling method were more or less equivalent.In the discussion, the authors emphasize that "researchers should therefore consider whether their research questions justify the potential physical burden (e.g., the high number of questionnaires) of an ESM design, given that our ESM estimates did not lead to a higher validity of adolescents' average time estimates across the three-week ESM period than our retrospective surveys did" (p.9).However, they add that multiple assessments are inevitable when studying within-person associations.Therefore, we opted for a daily diary approach, which is less burdensome than an ESM study but allows the investigation of processes within participants.
We assessed upward social comparisons as the general impression that others have a better life, are prettier or happier, or do/have cooler stuff (see also our response to R1.5).The reviewers observed that we did not measure upward social comparisons directly referring to social media use as did Boer et al (2021, p. 4), for instance: "Respondents indicated, when viewing their peers' messages, photos, or movies on social network sites, how often they thought 'He or she does more fun things than I do', 'He or she has more friends than I do' …".We were, however, interested in whether social media use is related to the overall impression that others are better off.This represents an extension of previous research and is why we measured global upward social comparisons and then, in the analyses, predicted this feeling by social media use.In our within-person analyses, we analyze whether variables (i.e., social media use and upward social comparisons) fluctuate simultaneously across time.Therefore, we were able to identify that on days children and young adolescents used more social media than usually, they also reported stronger upward social comparisons.Hence, at least part of the daily impression that others are better off seem to be associated with daily social media use -and to investigate this was one aim of the present study.We apologize for not having presented that clearly in the manuscript.We added this in the section "The Present Study" (pp.14-15) and shortened respective paragraph in the Methods section: "We assessed upward social comparisons as the general impression that others have a better life (e.g., are prettier, more popular, and happier or do and have cooler stuff).Notably, upward social comparisons scales used in other studies directly referred to social media (i.e., "Respondents indicated, when viewing their peers' messages, photos, or movies on social network sites, how often they thought 'He or she does more fun things than I do'", Boer et al., 2021, p. 4; "When I read news feeds (or see others' photos), I often think that others are having a better life than me", Lee, 2014, p. 256).One aim of the present study was to extend previous research by examining whether days with higher social media use were days on which children and young adolescents had a stronger impression of others having a better life, in general." We also discuss on this further in section 4.2 (p.38): "Furthermore, we deliberately measured general upward social comparisons, as opposed to different work that has assessed upward social comparisons triggered by social media use (see Boer et al., 2021;Lee, 2014).Hence, finding that on days children and young adolescents used more social media than usually, they also reported stronger upward social comparisons implies that at least part of the general daily impression that others are better off seem to be associated with daily social media use." As Reviewer 2 already mentioned, we discussed the possibility that events at school triggered upward social comparisons in the Limitations.However, we now additionally acknowledge that upward social comparisons might have been induced by other third variables (i.e., negative affect) in the present study (pp.43-44): "And fifth, prior studies suggest that the associations among social media use, upward social comparisons, and subjective well-being might be reciprocal instead of one-directional (Boer et al., 2021;Frison & Eggermont, 2016a, 2017;Midgley et a., 2021;Rousseau et al., 2017;Shin et al., 2022).
For instance, it is also possible that elevated negative affect induces upward social comparisons, in that individuals have the feeling that everyone else is doing better than them.To deepen our understanding of the assumed complex interplay between social media use, upward social comparisons, and subjective well-being, future studies should aim at examining the potential reciprocal relations on the within-day and across-day levels in children's and young adolescents' everyday lives." "At the beginning of the study, participants had been instructed to consider only their smartphone use of these platforms." R2.12 I think that section 4.1 could probably move to online supplementary files -while important, I did not immediately see what this added to the main papers and findings.RESPONSE: We agree with the Reviewer and moved this section to the online supplement.We now refer to the section at the beginning of the new section 4.1 (p.33): "Within the scope of the present study, we developed several scales (i.e., assessing subjective social media use).For a further discussion of these new instruments see the Online Supplement S3." R2.13 I think one big thing missing from discussion in the paper is COVID.Again, I do not think this is a fatal flaw, but these data were collected during the COVID pandemic, in a time when adolescents lives were still at least somewhat upended by the pandemic.Given that the authors make a point that other studies show inconsistent relations (but this study shows fairly clear relations) one explanation could be a function of the context of COVID.In other words, social media use might be linked to poorer well-being because of the unique stressors of the pandemic.I think it would be worth the authors discussing this further in the discussion section.RESPONSE: Thank you for raising this important point.We now discuss on this on pp.34-35: "Another possible reason could be the time at which the current data were collected (April to June 2021).During these months, daily life was still strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and related measures to contain the spread of the virus.Recent research has shown that social media use of adults (Gudino et al., 2022) and adolescents (Marciano et al., 2022) increased during the pandemic.Moreover, Marciano et al. (2022) demonstrated that social media use was the only screen-media activity (besides video gaming or television viewing, for instance) that was linked to worse mental health after the first lockdown in Swiss adolescents.Furthermore, Bonfanti et al. (2022) found that young adults with high passive Facebook use, a strong social comparison orientation on Facebook, and high fear of missing out reported a high level of psychological distress and low well-being during the pandemic in 2020.Hence, there is evidence that individuals' engagement with social media during the COVID-19 pandemic was different than before (see also Turner & Ordonia, 2023).Therefore, we cannot rule out the possibility that the unique circumstances due to the pandemic influenced our findings, perhaps strengthening the associations between social media use and subjective well-being." Bonfanti, R. C., Salerno, L., Brugnera, A., & Lo Coco, G. (2022).A longitudinal investigation on problematic Facebook use, psychological distress and well-being during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic.Scientific Reports, 12(1), 21828.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-26281-0Gudiño, D., Fernández-Sánchez, M.J., Becerra-Traver, M.T., Sánchez, S. ( 2022 RESPONSE: We agree and therefore removed this paragraph.However, please note that Reviewer 3 mentioned the missing distinction between active and passive use in the present study as a limitation, which is why we have included this in respective section (p.43).
"Third, we did not differentiate between active social media use (i.e., creating content, e.g., (Hasebrink et al., 2019;Krebs & Rynkowski, 2019).However, it is also starting in middle childhood that individuals develop a sense of self and form their identities (Eccles, 1999).As this process is usually accompanied by social comparisons, these also become more and more important during this time (Eccles, 1999;Erikson, 1968).Social media platforms offer endless opportunities to compare to others, as users can follow and watch friends or strangers around the world, provoking comparisons with multiple persons in many aspects (Verduyn et al., 2020).Thus, the second reason we targeted children and adolescents ages ten to 14 was to examine the associations between social media use, upward social comparisons, and subjective well-being (e.g., self-esteem) in an era characterized by figuring out one's worth based on comparisons with others.Third, previous research has suggested children to be particularly susceptible to the (negative) effects of media use (Booker et al., 2018;Liu et al., 2015), which has also been described as "developmental susceptibility" (Valkenburg & Peter, 2013, p. 227).For instance, high social media use in children (i.e., ten-year-olds) has been shown to have implications for subjective well-being in adolescence, especially for girls (Booker et al., 2018).Furthermore, in a meta-analysis, Liu et al. (2015) found that higher screen time was associated with a higher risk for developing depression in children from ten to 14 years of age, but not for those older than 14 years.

R3.1
The global measure of upward comparisons might better be described as measuring how people feel after the comparison rather than how much they compare to those who are better off.The scale could be better framed as measuring negative social comparison vs. upward social comparison.RESPONSE: Thank you for your suggestion on renaming the construct.We agree that it would also have been possible to assess how individuals felt after the comparison.This was done by Buunk et al. (2005), for instance, using the following two items: "How often do you feel good when you see that colleagues perform worse in their work than you do yourself?"and "How often do you feel bad when you see that colleagues perform better in their work than you do yourself?"(see p. 67).However, they called the construct "Affective consequences of social comparison".Similarly, Midgley et al. (2021) used two items measuring how individuals felt after comparing: "After making this comparison, I felt better about myself" and "After making this comparison, I felt worse about myself" [reverse-scored] (see p. 289).The authors called this construct "Postcomparison self-evaluation".By contrast, we did not ask children how they felt after the comparison but asked them whether they agreed to statements implying the comparison to a superior other.Thereby, we referred to previous work on "Upward (social) comparisons" (e.g., Boer et al., 2021;Schmuck et al., 2019;Vogel et al., 2014).This term is well-established, a definition is provided by Gerber et al. (2018): "An upward comparison is one in which the comparison standard is better off than the comparer" (p.178; see also Collins et al., 1996).Boer et al. (2021) also assessed "Upward social comparisons" in adolescents and used items such as "He or she does more fun things than I do" or "He or she receives more 'likes' than me".Our items were developed based on these items and, hence, are quite similar.Therefore, we tend to keep framing our scale as upward social comparisons.Children's Everyday Social Media Use and Well-Being" has now been seen by 3 reviewers, and I include their comments at the end of this message.Overall, they are appreciative of the work that has gone into the revision, but still express a few reservations that need to be addressed before we make a final decision on publication.
We therefore invite you to undertake a last minor revise and resubmit your manuscript, along with a point-by-point response to the reviewers.Please highlight all changes in the manuscript text file.
Editorially, we consider it critical you address the issues pertaining to the social comparison scale.
After receiving the reviews, we sought additional feedback from Reviewer 2 regarding the scale, and they agree that stronger stronger upward social comparisons is not the best terminology, and that the issues needs to be addressed in revision through precise description, appropriate interpretation, and transparent discussion of limitations under the subheading "Limitations" in the discussion section.We therefore urge you to follow these recommendations.
To facilitate the next steps, we would also ask you to ensure that the manuscript complies with the journal's formatting standards which you can find in this template: https://www.nature.com/documents/commspsychol-style-formatting-guide-accept.pdf and checklist: https://www.nature.com/documents/commspsychol-style-formatting-checklist-articlerr.pdf.
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We would appreciate it if you could keep us informed about an estimated timescale for resubmission, to facilitate our planning.
For you to be able to follow the changes we made, we highlighted edit parts of the manuscript using blue font.In our responses, we inserted the new or adjusted paragraphs and included the page number to indicate precisely where we implemented changes.Please note that in doing the revision, we formatted our manuscript according to the guidelines provided by the Journal.Hence, we adapted several sections and added further information (e.g., changed the title, changed the Heading for 2.4, changed the citation style, and added a statement that the study was not preregistered).
In the following, we describe point by point how we responded to your specific concerns: RESPONSE: Effects on a within-person level refer to associations that unfold within individuals across time.Hence, we receive one estimate for the within-person association of variables for the whole sample, implying that the estimate refers to an aggregate of the single within-person effect sizes of all persons.By contrast, person-specific effects refer to within-person effect sizes that are calculated for each individual separately.We added further information on this on pp.5-6: "Likewise, Beyens et al. 33 and Beyens et al. 38 did not find Instagram or social media use to be associated with adolescents' affective well-being on a within-person level.Aiming to explore the relations in more detail, the authors examined person-specific effects, that is, they calculated individual within-person effect sizes separately for each adolescent.These analyses revealed differences between adolescents in the significance and direction of the associations between social media use and affective well-being.Thereby, most adolescents showed non-significant relations, while some adolescents showing increased or decreased well-being when using social media 33 .After having found a nonsignificant within-person effect of social media use on self-esteem, Valkenburg et al. 39  Understanding what past research has specifically found regarding self-control as a moderator of the association between media use on well-being would help readers to better understand why this moderator was selected.RESPONSE: We thank the Reviewer for pointing out that more information is needed on this topic.We have revised the section on why we investigated the failure of self-control as a potential moderator by explaining findings of previous research in more detail and deriving our expectations (pp. 10-11).In response to this comment, we also explicated our expectations for the other moderators (p.11)."Besides gender, prior studies with adults also motivated us to examine self-control failure with regard to social media use.Self-control refers to the "ability to override or change one's inner responses, as well as to interrupt undesired behavioral tendencies (such as impulses) and refrain from acting on them" 65(p.274) .Hence, self-control failure related to social media use assesses the degree to which individuals use social media platforms although it stands in conflict with other goals or tasks, or with using time efficiently 66 .Social media-related self-control failure is associated with deficient selfregulation 66 and can be predictive of later social media addiction 67 .Previous work that has reviewed existing evidence with individuals of all ages concludes that self-control and the failure thereof serve as significant moderators of the effects of media use on well-being 68,69 .Thus, the effect of social media use on well-being depends on individual's degree of self-control failure: Failure to self-control social media use can impair subjective well-being by increasing negative emotions following social media use (e.g., guilt) as well as by decreasing the beneficial impact of social media use, that is, by reducing the experience of positive emotions (e.g., enjoyment, vitality) 68,70 .Therefore, we decided to explore whether social media self-control failure moderated the associations of interest in the present study, assuming children with higher self-control failure to show stronger links between social media use and negative self-worth and negative affect, and to show weaker links between social media use and positive selfworth and positive affect than children with lower self-control failure."

Responses to
R1.5 On page 16, the authors added that participants were instructed to consider only smartphone use of various social media platforms.Is there a specific reason the authors included this restriction?Is this to make the study comparable to past studies or do the authors believe a four-month interval, hence, the study had a larger three-wave panel design.Although within-person associations were examined, the study did not employ an intensive longitudinal design that would include at least one assessment per day across several days (i.e., daily diary design or experience sampling method).In the part of our manuscript that the Reviewer refers to, we cite within-person studies that investigated such relatively short-term fluctuations in social media use and subjective wellbeing and employed a daily diary or experience sampling design (mostly combined with an ambulatory assessment approach that refers to data collection in individuals' everyday lives and, hence, natural contexts).Furthermore, we focus rather on the general use of social media per se than on positivitybased posting behavior, in particular.Therefore, we decided to not include the study in our manuscript.RESPONSE: We agree with the Reviewer and added more information as well as a connection to the current study on pp.5-6.In describing the person-specific effects of Beyens et al. in more detail, we added another relevant study (Valkenburg et al., 2021).We now also refer to this study in the Discussion on p. 32."Likewise, Beyens et al. 33 and Beyens et al. 38 did not find Instagram or social media use to be associated with adolescents' affective well-being on a within-person level.Aiming to explore the relations in more detail, the authors examined person-specific effects, that is, they calculated individual within-person effect sizes separately for each adolescent.These analyses revealed differences between adolescents in the significance and direction of the associations between social media use and affective well-being.Thereby, most adolescents showed non-significant relations, while some adolescents showing increased or decreased well-being when using social media 33 .After having found a nonsignificant within-person effect of social media use on self-esteem, Valkenburg et al. 39 also investigated person-specific effects.They showed that the majority of adolescents (88%) experienced no (or very small) effects of social media use on self-esteem, while only few adolescents experienced positive (4%) or negative (8%) effects.Supporting heterogeneity in the effects, Boer et al. 34 also showed that withinperson associations between social media use and life satisfaction ranged from negative to positive across adolescents.Altogether, previous studies demonstrate that individuals differ in their effects of social media use on subjective well-being.Hence, there is a strong need for research investigating why some adolescents seemingly benefit from using social media, while others are harmed by it and yet others seem to be unaffected 34,38 .As emphasized by Valkenburg et al. 8 , examining mediators and moderators in the associations between social media use and well-being might help to shed light on this heterogeneity.The present study follows up on this by examining upward social comparisons as a mediator of the link between daily social media use and daily subjective well-being in children and young adolescents.Furthermore, potential moderators of the associations of interest are explored." "However, our result of significant within-person associations between social media use and self-worth stand in contrast to the results by Valkenburg et al. 39 , who did not find a significant within-person effect of social media use on self-esteem.Yet, the authors assessed the use of Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat; hence, only one platform overlapped with the present study and the sample consisted of older participants (13 to 15 years) than the current sample (10 to 14 years).Nonetheless, it is not clear why the current results diverge this much from the findings by Valkenburg et al. 39 " R2.4 Page 7, middle of the page: following 'pleasant information', please change 'are' to 'is'.RESPONSE: Thank you, we changed 'are' to 'is' in this sentence.
Today, I had the feeling that others have more or cooler stuff than me.
We agree that we assessed the general impression ('feeling') of others being superior in some way and not the absence or presence of engaging in upward social comparisons.However, individuals would not agree to our items if they had not been engaging in upward social comparisons and, hence, have the feeling that others are better off.Nonetheless, we added this as a limitation on p. 39: "Fourth, we developed our items assessing upward social comparisons based on the work by Boer et  al. 23 .However, it may be argued that the items do not exactly tap the construct of engaging in upward social comparisons, but rather the impression or feeling that results from it.Therefore, it would be interesting to replicate our study with a different measure including items such as "Today, I compared myself to those who seemed to have a better life than me" and "Today, I compared myself to those who seemed to be prettier than me", and to compare such a measure to the present scale."We therefore invite you to revise your paper one last time to address our editorial requests.At the same time we ask that you edit your manuscript to comply with our format requirements and to maximise the accessibility and therefore the impact of your work.**Relatedly, the Discussion itself contains many unnecessary repetitions.It is not necessary to repeatedly point out the same features of the study that makes it distinct from previous work across (for example, repeatedly pointing out the sample was younger/ the internet platforms differed).
Streamlining the text would increase readability without information getting lost.
Please review our specific editorial comments and requests regarding your manuscript in the attached "Editorial Requests Table ".Please outline your response to each request in the right hand column.Please upload the completed table with your manuscript files as a Related Manuscript file.
If you have any questions or concerns about any of our requests, please do not hesitate to contact me.

SUBMISSION INFORMATION:
In order to accept your paper, we require the files listed at the end of the Editorial Requests Table ; the list of required files is also available at https://www.nature.com/documents/commsj-file- comparisons in daily life (Wheeler & Miyake, 1992; Midgley et al., 2021).In contrast, Midgley et al. (2021) used an experience sampling design that asked participants whether they made a social comparison, the direction of the comparison, and in what context they made the comparison, which allowed them to directly link social media use to social comparisons and look at whether comparisons made on social media differed from comparisons made in other contexts.Midgley et al. ( Midgley, C., Thai, S., Lockwood, P., Kovacheff, C. & Page-Gould, E. (2021).When every day is a high school reunion: Social media comparisons and self-esteem.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 121, 285-307.
you for the opportunity to review this manuscript, detailing the between-and withinsubjects effects of daily social media use on aspects related to child and adolescent well-being.I have some comments that I hope are helpful and constructive to the authors.In short, though, I found this manuscript to be clear and well-written, the design and analysis important and wellconducted, and the findings have the opportunity to add to the literature in this research area.RESPONSE: We thank the Reviewer for the positive evaluation of our work and the helpful feedback and suggestions.R2.1 In the introduction, it would be helpful to add a bit more on what you mean by the 'heterogeneity of studies' -I knew what the authors meant as I do research in this area, but I think one line or two might make this more clear for all readers.RESPONSE: We agree with the Reviewer and added further information on p. 3: ). Social media and the pandemic: Consumption habits of the Spanish population before and during the COVID-19 lockdown.Sustainability, 14, 5490.https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095490Marciano, L., Viswanath, K., Morese, R., & Camerini, A. L. (2022).Screen time and adolescents' mental health before and after the COVID-19 lockdown in Switzerland: A natural experiment.Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, 981881.https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.981881Turner, M., & Ordonia, D. (2023).How COVID-19 changed self-presentation on instagram and its relation to user well-being.Interacting with Computers, Advance Online Publication.https://doi.org/10.1093/iwc/iwad013R2.14I felt like the paragraph in the discussion on active and passive social media use was not very well integrated (I do not think the authors had discussed this distinction to this point).I also felt it was a bit too speculative, so I would recommend cutting this.
Reviewer 1's comments: R1.0 Overall, I am satisfied with the revisions that the authors have made.The authors have done a good job of addressing my primary concerns in the original manuscript.However, I still have some smaller questions and concerns when I read the revised manuscript.RESPONSE: Thank you for the positive feedback on the revisions we made.R1.1 On page 6 of the revised manuscript, the authors mentioned person-specific effects, but it is not clear what they mean by person-specific effects.Until this point, the authors have discussed between-person and within-person effects.It would be helpful for the reader to understand the literature, especially one with so many mixed findings if the authors explained what is meant by person-specific effects.

R2. 3
Page 6: following the citations of Beyens et al. (2020; 2021), I think it would be helpful to include a couple of lines describing these findings in more detail and connecting them to the present study.
EDITORIAL REQUESTS: **Please fully report all statistics, as detailed in the attached checklist; for example, it is not sufficient to report just Pseudo R without any further details.**All statistics incorporated in the Figures need to be reported redundantly in the main text.**Statistics also need to be reported in full in the Tables, i.e., include the degrees of freedom, test statistic, effect size measure (if different from the test-statistics), confidence interval, and exact pvalue.** Currently, you repeat many arguments and reflections between Introduction and Discussion.Please streamline the text to avoid unnecessary repetition across sections.For example, you do not need to start the Discussion with a repetition of study rationale and previous findings.Instead, you might want to briefly highlight you most relevant results.
conducted an experimental study and found that undergraduates with a strong tendency to compare themselves to others were more negatively affected by viewing others' Facebook profiles (i.e., reported lower self-esteem, lower affective well-being, and poorer selfperceptions) than undergraduates with a weaker tendency to compare themselves to others.Based on these studies that were mostly conducted with (young) adults, we investigated the general tendency to engage in social comparisons as another potential moderator in our study."AndintheDiscussion(p.42):"Hence, contrary to previous research and our expectations, we did not find that girls showed stronger links than boys or that children with stronger self-control failure or with stronger social comparison orientation on abilities showed stronger links than children with weaker self-control failure or with weaker social comparison orientation on abilities.However, prior studies were mostly conducted with adults or adolescents, whereas we examined children aged ten to 14 years.It is possible that gender differences, for instance, are not yet observable at this young age and develop only in adolescence.Nonetheless, our results suggest that the associations between social media use, upward social comparisons, and subjective well-being hold across a range of person-level characteristics in children and young adolescents."Kleemans,M., Daalmans, S., Carbaat, I., & Anschütz, D. (2018).Picture perfect: The direct effect of manipulated Instagram photos on body image in adolescent girls.Media Psychology, 21(1), 93-110.https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2016.1257392

R1.4 The authors did not describe the scale used for the upward comparison items, making it difficult to interpret the findings. The overall low means suggest that upward comparisons were relatively infrequent. Moreover, it is unclear what the authors mean by stronger upward comparisons. Do they mean these upward comparisons are more impactful? Do they mean that participants viewed a greater discrepancy between themselves and the other people? Do they mean the participants made more comparisons?
Hence, as children appear to be especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of social media use on well-being and healthy development, research examining the associations in this age group's everyday lives in more detail is essential to develop tailored and effective prevention and intervention measures."Liu, M., Wu, L., & Yao, S. (2016).Dose-response association of screen time-based sedentary behaviour in children and adolescents and depression: A meta-analysis of observational studies.Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2013).The differential susceptibility to media effects model.Journal of Communication, 63(2), 221-243.https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12024RESPONSE: We thank the Reviewer for pointing out that information on response scales was not provided for the upward social comparison scale.We added this together with further information on what higher scores (i.e., stronger upward comparisons) indicate on p. 17: British Journal of SportsMedicine, 50(20), 1252-1258.http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2015-9 . Picture perfect: The direct effect of manipulated Instagram photos on body image in adolescent girls.Media Psychology, 21(1), 93-110.https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2016.1257392Li, C., Dang, J., Zhang, X., Zhang, Q., & Guo, J. (2014).Internet addiction among Chinese adolescents: The effect of parental behavior and self-control.Computers in Human Behavior, 41, 1-7.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.09.001Nesi, J., & Prinstein, M. J. (2015).Using social media for social comparison and feedback-seeking: Gender and popularity moderate associations with depressive symptoms.Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 43(8), 1427-1438.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-015-0020-0Reinecke, L., Gilbert, A., & Eden, A. (2022).Self-regulation as a key boundary condition in the relationship between social media use and well-being.Current Opinion in Psychology, 45, 101296.

R2.15 At multiple points, the authors write that they go beyond previous findings by examining younger adolescents. Is there a developmental reason to expect that the relations of these variables among 10-14-year-olds would differ from those of 16-18-year-olds, for example? If so, this would be important to add. If not, I think the authors could spend a bit more less time making this distinction
posting photos or videos) and passive social media use(e.g., consuming content)in this work.Future work should examine the extent to which children as young as ten to 14 years of age already engage in active social media use and, further, whether active and passive use differentially relate to upward social comparisons and subjective well-being." .RESPONSE: We apologize for not having stated clearly why we examined the age group of ten to 14 years.We have added a paragraph on this in section 1.4 "The Present Study" (pp.11-12): "We targeted this age group due to several reasons.First, research has shown that by the age of ten, children mostly start using social media on smartphones

Finally, the authors frame the discussion of the moderators as being careful about focusing on the one significant interaction. I would advise to frame it more as --these results are pretty consistent! I think that's the more noteworthy finding here. And if the authors focus more on why and how they selected these moderating variables, then I think this finding (or lack thereof in terms of significant interactions) will matter even more.
RESPONSE: We thank the Reviewer for this comment and now highlight more clearly that having found only one significant interaction points to very consistent results (p.42):

There are not many studies done on social comparison using a daily diary approach, and this study adds to the existing literature such as Midgley et al., (2021).
RESPONSE: We thank the Reviewer for valuing the contribution of our study to the literature.
Boer, M., Stevens, G. W., Finkenauer, C., Looze, M. E. de, & Van den Eijnden, R. J. (2021).Social media use intensity, social media use problems, and mental health among adolescents: Investigating directionality and mediating processes.Computers in Human Behavior, 116, 106645.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106645Thank you for your patience during the peer-review process.Your manuscript titled "The Daily Reminder That Others are Better off: The Role of Upward Comparisons in the Link Between

On page 9, the authors point out a gap in the literature suggesting that most participants in past studies were above the age of 17 and it is unclear what the results would look like in younger samples. Here, it would be useful to indicate that the authors will discuss the importance of looking at these effects in a younger population later on or to discuss their rationale for examining the younger sample here given that they already point out the gap at this point. It would be natural to then elaborate on the importance of filling this gap
. RESPONSE: We agree with the Reviewer and decided to move the later discussion of the importance of examining younger populations (part of the section "The Present Study") to the mentioned paragraph on page 9.

On page 10, the authors mention existing research demonstrating how self-control moderates the effects of media use on well-being. This statement is vague because it is not clear what the effect is.
Boer, M., Stevens, G. W., Finkenauer, C., Looze, M. E. de, & Van den Eijnden, R. J. (2021).Social media use intensity, social media use problems, and mental health among adolescents: Investigating directionality and mediating processes.Computers in Human Behavior, 116, 106645.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106645Yourmanuscript titled "The Mediating Role of Upward Comparisons in the Link Between Children's Daily Social Media Use and Well-Being" and response to the reviewers has now been editorially evaluated.I am delighted to say that we are happy, in principle, to publish a suitably revised version in Communications Psychology under the open access CC BY license (Creative Commons Attribution v4.0 International License).