The course of social media use problems in secondary school adolescents: A latent class growth analysis
Little is known about how addiction-like social media use (SMU) problems evolve over time. Using four waves of longitudinal data collected in 2015-2019 from 1,414 adolescents (Mage = 12.5, 46.0% girl, 21.9% immigrant background), this study aimed to identify adolescents’ trajectories of SMU problems in parallel with their trajectories of SMU intensity. Latent class growth analysis identified two subgroups with persistently high levels of SMU problems, of which one with high (24.7%) and one with average SMU intensity (14.8%), and two subgroups with persistently low levels of SMU problems, of which one with low (22.3%) and one with high SMU intensity (38.2%). Compared to the largest subgroup, the two subgroups with high levels of SMU problems showed more problematic profiles.