<p>The goal of this study was to explore the relationship between motivations for using social media and mental health outcomes while considering the amount of social media use and individual levels of mindfulness and self-compassion. 292 undergraduate students self-reported their social media use (frequency of checking and number of sites used), motivations for using social media (affective, behavioral, and cognitive), mental health (self-esteem, anxiety, and depression), mindfulness, and self-compassion in an online survey. A mediation analysis was performed. With mindfulness and self-compassion controlled, social media showed very few relationships with mental health variables: there was no direct relationship with anxiety or depression; frequency of checking social media, but not number of sites used, had a small positive relationship with self-esteem. Motivations for using social media, however, were related to mental health: higher levels of engaging with social media for affective or behavioral reasons were associated with higher depression levels. Further, the relationship between affective and behavioral reasons for engaging with social media and self-esteem were mediated by the frequency with which one checks their social media. With mindfulness and self-compassion controlled, social media (use and motivations) was not related to anxiety. Mindfulness and self-compassion were beneficially associated with mental health and their facets differentially predicted motivations for using social media. Taken together, these findings suggest that the relationship between social media and mental health is not straightforward, but that mindfulness and self-compassion interventions could potentially be effective in reducing social media use motivated by affective (boredom) or behavioral (habit) reasons.</p>