# Well-Being and Social Media: A Systematic Review of Bergen Addiction Scales
## 4 Discussion  
The impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Internet services (e.g., social media) on our daily lives [79] can surely be described both in terms of individual empowerment, as well as in terms of direct impact on well-being. Literature reports how people spending significant amounts of time connected on the Internet can experience negative outcomes including problematic and addictive behaviors [29; 35; 80]. Nevertheless, less is known about how measures of social media addiction relate with well-being indicators for non-clinical individuals. Our work contributes with a systematic review in clarifying the relationship emerging by the literature between well-being and [PERSON]'s addiction scales, which are widely adopted by the scientific community as valid measures for social media addiction. In general, the psychological tools thought to capture negative well-being aspects close to psychopathology (i.e., WPQ-Negative Well-Being, WHO-5) resulted in having the highest correlation with Bergen's addiction scales [42; 49], while the other well-being scales appeared to entertain a small or no relationship to BFAS/BSMAS. The fact that WHO-5 had the highest correlation with BFAS is interpretable considering that the WHO-5 is more sensitive towards dimensions particularly impacted by social media usage, as well as connected to depression and anxiety. For instance, a score below 13 in WHO-5 indicates poor well-being and is an indication for testing for depression [81; 82]. In this sense, the instrument's lower bound appears able to capture and distinguish pathological individuals, which may use Facebook or social media in a dysfunctional way [10; 83]. Instead, the positive framed well-being measure appeared less connected to BFAS/BSMAS. This effect could be explained considering how low scores on these well-being measures do not necessarily imply psychopathology issues, and thus could be the outcome of social media addiction. Literature highlighted how psychopathological measures of anxiety and depression entertained small or negligible correlation with flourishing [84] and life satisfaction [85; 86], which are respectively EWB and HWB measures. To put it simply, positive and negative framed well-being measures seems characterized by a different sensitivity towards psychopathology, and in particular with anxiety and depression diseases, which have been already connected with a dysfunctional use of social media [10; 83]. Thus, this may be the reason behind the different magnitudes of the correlation between BFAS/BSMAS and well-being measured considering positive or negative frames. Indeed, we observed an effect size ranging from 20% to 32% for the negative framed measures and from 0% to 12% for the positive ones. The variability of these effects, as well as their size, can also be rooted in cultural and sample-related differences and thus further research appears as needed to define how much sample characteristics matter. The considered studies were realized in different countries (i.e., within different cultural system), and, in particular, only 4 out of 10 studies [42; 45; 46; 50] assessed the relation between Bergen's addiction scales and well-being with populations different from college students. Future research should consider different populations, and explicitly account for the more relevant moderating and mediating factors (e.g., age, technological fluency and literacy) reported by the recent literature about human virtual dynamics [87; 88; 89], as well as lay the foundations for comparative studies involving different populations. Moreover, how the different motives behind a dysfunctional social media experience (e.g., excessive need for communication, leisure, belonging) affect people's well-being should be tested by new empirical research. The same scores in terms of addiction could underlie very different experiences and thus repercussions on the well-being [90]. The operationalization of well-being is another critical issue.