The Relationship Between Social Media Use and Creativity: A Meta‐Analysis

ABSTRACT In the digital era, social media continues to consume an increasing share of individuals' time and attention. As a result, the association between social media use (SMU) and creativity has garnered growing interest in both public discourse and academic research, although empirical findings remain inconsistent. We conducted a meta‐analysis of 31 studies (71 effect sizes, total N = 10,156) to examine the relationship between SMU and creativity. The overall effect indicated a small positive correlation between SMU and creativity ( r = 0.21, 95% CI [0.11, 0.30], p < 0.001). Moderator analyses identified four statistically significant moderators—social media use dimension, focus on excessive SMU, creativity metric dimension, and creativity metric context. Drawing uniquely on research at the intersection of SMU and creativity, our findings suggest that this form of human–computer interaction may be associated with enhanced creativity, although the magnitude of the association is modest. Further empirical work is needed to clarify the mechanisms linking SMU to creativity and to develop more robust metrics capable of capturing the multidimensional and dynamic nature of both constructs.