Abstract
There is an ever-increasing interest in how amounts of electronic use can relate to a person’s social ability, but the research has been limited to the effect of electronic use on emotion perception and regulation. Here, I investigate how levels of electronic use can relate to a person’s emotional granularity, ability to understand and use emotion terms, emotional regulation, and a person’s ability to identify emotion in facial expressions. I tested two populations: undergraduates (Study 1) and seventh-grade middle schoolers at a local middle school (Study 2). In both studies, the overall models of emotional regulation (DERS) and emotional granularity (RDEES) were both significant when all predictors, including electronic usage, were included. Only in Study 1, however, were the models for emotion perception measures significant with all predictors included. Specifically, in Study 1, emotion word use and the RDEES were the only significant individual predictors of emotion regulation (DERS), and the emotion regulation and electronic use were the only significant individual predictors of emotional granularity (RDEES). In addition, electronic use was the only individual predictor for emotion perception, but only for speed (not accuracy). In Study 2, electronic use was the only significant individual predictor for emotion regulation, and both emotion word understanding and emotion word use were the only significant predictors of emotional granularity (RDEES).None of the variables solely predicted either emotion perception outcome in Study 2. These results are important because research is limited for electronic use and its effects on emotion perception and emotion regulation. Of particular importance is that higher amounts of electronic use predicted decreased emotional regulation (increased emotion regulation difficulties), but only in adolescents.