Scroll to Score: How Social Media is Reshaping the Mental Game of Modern Athletes

Abstract

The inclusion of social media in the lives of a competitive athlete is a paradigm shift in sport psychology, and it has a fundamental change in the way athletes view themselves, how they handle pressure, and how they perform in the limelight of the media. This article analyzes the intricate connection between social media use and the mental health of athletes by synthesizing the recent empirical studies in the fields of sports medicine, psychology, and performance science. Based on the Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model (DSMM) and recent log-based tracking research of adolescent and young adult athletes, this analysis shows that the effects of social media on the mental well-being of athletes are not only positively but also heavily moderated by the level of performance, type of platform, and use patterns. The results show that Tik Tok use is negatively related to the quality of sleep and recovery and positively related to stress, but Instagram use demonstrates interpersonal relationships with being calm and having a positive affect (Fiedler et al., 2024). Importantly, the effect of negative effects is attenuated or reversed in athletes with elite-level performance than in those with lower performance level, indicating the emergence of psychological resilience or selective engagement strategies (Sanchez, 2023). This paper suggests a paradigm of social media as a two-mechanism space that both endangers and improves the mental health of athletes, and its use in clinical practice, coaching, and education of athletes.

Keywords: Social media, mental health of athletes, sport psychology, performance pressure, digital resilience, sleep quality, Instagram, Tik Tok, elite athletes.