Wise Empathy Improves Well-being on Instagram

Most of the global population spends significant time browsing social media making it critical to understand how to improve experiences online to support well-being. Here, we test whether a brief intervention training individuals to use wise empathy on Instagram can improve users’ well-being. In an ecological momentary intervention, we trained half our sample (N = 260) to wisely regulate empathy for positive and negative posts. Using experience sampling (Nobs. = 5,902), we tracked empathy and well-being in daily life. The intervention increased wise empathy online—boosting appreciative joy, positive emotion sharing, and compassion for negative emotions—while reducing negative emotion sharing, upward social comparisons, and personal distress. When participants had recently browsed Instagram, those in the wise empathy condition reported higher well-being than controls, an effect mediated by changes in wise empathy. These findings position wise empathy as a scalable, trainable skill that can enhance well-being on social media.