scholarly journals Social Media Use and Depressive Symptoms—A Longitudinal Study from Early to Late Adolescence

Author(s):  
Kati Puukko ◽  
Lauri Hietajärvi ◽  
Erika Maksniemi ◽  
Kimmo Alho ◽  
Katariina Salmela-Aro

An increasing number of studies have addressed how adolescents’ social media use is associated with depressive symptoms. However, few studies have examined whether these links occur longitudinally across adolescence when examined at the individual level of development. This study investigated the within-person effects between active social media use and depressive symptoms using a five-wave longitudinal dataset gathered from 2891 Finnish adolescents (42.7% male, age range 13–19 years). Sensitivity analysis was conducted, adjusting for gender and family financial status. The results indicate that depressive symptoms predicted small increases in active social media use during both early and late adolescence, whereas no evidence of the reverse relationship was found. Yet, the associations were very small, statistically weak, and somewhat inconsistent over time. The results provide support for the growing notion that the previously reported direct links between social media use and depressive symptoms might be exaggerated. Based on these findings, we suggest that the impact of social media on adolescents’ well-being should be approached through methodological assumptions that focus on individual-level development.

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (39) ◽  
pp. 50-61
Author(s):  
Alisar Hudimova ◽  
Ihor Popovych ◽  
Vita Baidyk ◽  
Olena Buriak ◽  
Olha Kechyk

Aim. The present study empirically investigates and theoretically substantiates the results of the impact of social media on young web-users’ psychological well-being during the forced self-isolation caused by the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 254). Materials and methods. Standardized valid psycho-diagnostic methods, the author’s questionnaire (A. Hudimova, 2021), correlation and factor analyses were used to identify young web users’ patterns of social media involvement during the forced self-isolation. Results. The results show that during the global COVID-19 pandemic, young web users give preference for passive social media use rather than for communication. The obtained results showed an expansion in the time spent via social media by young web users. It was found that the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic is accompanied by the participants’ experience of negative emotions and fears of the unknown (r = .204; p <.01). It is substantiated that increasing immersion of young web users in social media is a kind of strategy to escape from bad thoughts (r = .271; p <.01). Significantly, it is stated that uncontrolled use of social media causes sleep disorders during isolation (r = .444; p <.01). Conclusions. The study proves that young people spend almost all day online due to the obsessive pattern of social media involvement and/or procrastination, which often provokes withdrawal syndrome upon the attempt to distract from them. The lack of controlled time spending on social media during self-isolation provokes an exacerbation of anxiety, apathy, depressed mood, and a sense of isolation from social reality. The obtained results provide evidence that the causal relations of passive social media use provoke an exacerbation of feelings of alienation, disrupt the healthy rhythm of sleep, and psychological state of young web-users during the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuela Calandri ◽  
Federica Graziano ◽  
Luca Rollé

The study of the psychological effects of social media use on adolescents’ adjustment has long been the focus of psychological research, but results are still inconclusive. In particular, there is a lack of research on the positive and negative developmental outcomes and on possible moderating variables, especially concerning early adolescence. To fill these gaps in literature, the present study longitudinally investigated the relationships between social media use, depressive symptoms, affective well-being and life satisfaction, as well as the moderating role of emotional self-efficacy and gender. The study involved 336 Italian early adolescents (mean age = 13, sd = 0.3; 48% girls) who completed an anonymous self-report questionnaire twice within a year. Main results showed that higher social media use was related to higher depressive symptoms, lower affective well-being and lower life satisfaction among girls with lower emotional self-efficacy. Conversely, high social media use was related to higher affective well-being and higher life satisfaction for girls with higher emotional self-efficacy. Results are discussed in relation to their implications for risk prevention and health promotion among early adolescents. In particular, our results suggest that promoting emotional self-efficacy can be very helpful in making the use of social media an opportunity for well-being and life satisfaction rather than a developmental risk.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md. Saiful Islam ◽  
Md. Safaet Hossain Sujan ◽  
Rafia Tasnim ◽  
Rashenda Aziz Mohona ◽  
Most. Zannatul Ferdous ◽  
...  

Background: Smartphone and social media use are an integral part of our daily life. Currently, the impact of excessive smartphone and social media use during the COVID-19 pandemic is poorly understood. The present study aimed to investigate problematic smartphone use (PSPU) and problematic social media use (PSMU) among Bangladeshi college and university students during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out involving 5,511 Bangladeshi college and university students (male: 58.9%; mean age: 21.2 years [SD = 1.7]; age range: 18–25) during the social-distancing in the COVID-19 pandemic (July 2020). A self-reported survey containing questions regarding socio-demographic, lifestyle, and home quarantine activities along with four psychometric scales was completed by participants.Results: The mean scores of PSPU and PSMU were 20.8 ± 6.8 (out of 36) and 14.7 ± 4.8 (out of 30). Based on a hierarchical regression analysis, PSPU and PSMU were positively associated with lower age, poor sleep, social media use, watching television, anxiety, and depression. Additionally, PSMU was linked to being female, living with nuclear family, having urban residence, irregular physical exercise, poor engagement with academic studies, and avoiding earning activities, whilst being male, being married, living with lower-income family, and alcohol consumption were linked to PSMU.Conclusions: The findings indicate that PSPU and PSMU were linked to poor psychological well-being (i.e., anxiety and depression) and other factors (especially lower age, poor sleep) during the pandemic, further suggesting the need for interventions including virtual awareness programs among college and university students.


2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110654
Author(s):  
Patti M Valkenburg ◽  
Irene I van Driel ◽  
Ine Beyens

A recurring claim in the literature is that active social media use (ASMU) leads to increases in well-being, whereas passive social media use (PSMU) leads to decreases in well-being. The aim of this review was to investigate the validity of this claim by comparing the operationalizations and results of studies into the association of ASMU and PSMU with well-being (e.g. happiness) and ill-being (e.g. depressive symptoms). We found 40 survey-based studies, which utilized a hodgepodge of 36 operationalizations of ASMU and PSMU and which yielded 172 associations of ASMU and/or PSMU with well-/ill-being. Most studies did not support the hypothesized associations of ASMU and PSMU with well-/ill-being. Time spent on ASMU and PSMU may be too coarse to lead to meaningful associations with well-/ill-being. Therefore, future studies should take characteristics of the content of social media (e.g. the valence), its senders (e.g. pre-existing mood), and receivers (e.g. differential susceptibility) into account.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy H Perlis ◽  
Jon Green ◽  
Matthew Simonson ◽  
Katherine Ognyanova ◽  
Mauricio Santillana ◽  
...  

Importance: Some studies suggest that social media use is associated with risk for depression, particularly among children and young adults. Objective: To characterize the association between self-reported use of individual social media platforms, and worsening of depressive symptoms, among adults. Design: We included data from 13 waves of a non-probability internet survey conducted between May 2020 and May 2021 among individuals age 18 and older in the United States. We applied logistic regression with 5 or more point increase in PHQ-9 as outcome, and sociodemographic features, baseline PHQ-9, and use of each social media platform as independent variables, without reweighting. Participants: Survey respondents 18 and older. Main Outcome and Measure: PHQ-9 worsening by 5 points or more. Results: A total of 5395/8045 (67.1%) individuals with a PHQ-9<5 on initial survey completed a second PHQ-9. These respondents had mean age 55.82 years (SD 15.17); 3546 (65.7%) reported female gender, the remainder male; 329 (6.1%) were Asian, 570 (10.6%) Black, 256 (4.7%) Hispanic, 4118 (76.3%) White, and 122 (2.3%) Native American or Alaska Native, Pacific Islander or Native Hawaiian, or Other. Among them, 482 (8.9%) reported 5 point or greater worsening at second survey. In fully-adjusted models for increase in symptoms, largest odds ratio associated with social media use was observed for Snapchat (aOR 1.53, 95% CI 1.19-1.96), Facebook (aOR 1.42, 1.10-1.81), and TikTok (aOR 1.39, 95% CI 1.03-1.87). Conclusions and Relevance: Among survey respondents who did not report depressive symptoms initially, social media use was associated with greater likelihood of subsequent increase in depressive symptoms after adjustment for sociodemographic features and news sources. These data cannot elucidate the nature of this relationship, but suggest the need for further study to understand the impact of social media use.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micaela Rodriguez ◽  
George Aalbers ◽  
Richard J. McNally

Disentangling the impact of social media use on our well-being is a priority for psychological research. Numerous studies indicate that active social media use (ASMU) tends to enhance well-being, whereas passive social media use (PSMU) undermines it. However, such research has conducted analyses at the group-level, thus potentially obscuring individual differences. In this study, we examined person-centered relationships between social media use and depression symptoms by using a secondary analysis of a publicly available experience sampling dataset (Aalbers et al., 2019). Dutch undergraduate students (N = 125) reported PSMU, ASMU, and depression symptoms 7 times daily for 14 days. We (a) visualized interindividual variability in temporal associations between social media use and individual depression symptoms, (b) compared the aggregate network model to idiographic models, and (c) determined the distribution of person-specific temporal associations between PSMU, ASMU, and depression symptoms. Overall, we found that associations between social media use and depression symptoms differed substantially from individual to individual in both strength and kind. In addition, PSMU and ASMU were very weakly to weakly associated with depression symptoms for most individuals. Future work should examine the differential impact that social media have on our well-being, and how their effects may differ depending on our demographic characteristics, personality traits, and usage patterns.


2021 ◽  
Vol 03 (07) ◽  
pp. 294-304
Author(s):  
Abdelmounim KIOUACH ◽  
Benaissa ZARHBOUCH

This study aims to reveal the effect of social media on adolescents among a sample of high school students in Morocco. In fact, the study sample consisted of 68 male and female students equally.to begin with, the importance of the research was manifested in its being a subject of study, within a theoretical framework in which psychology, neurology and information communication technology interact, with the aim of highlighting the impact of these means on the individual in general, and clarifying the brain changes caused by emotional and cognitive functions in particular. Thus, we will conduct an exploratory study on the percentage of social media use among high school students, and clarify the differences related to excessive access to social media according to the gender variable, in order to clarify the impact of social media on the mental health of adolescents, and its relationship to some disorders in this category, and provide a neuro-cognitive explanation about the impact that these means can have on the individual. To achieve the above, we conducted a field study using the Young Scale to measure the intensity of social media use among adolescents. The results of the study concluded that adolescents use social media at an average level, and there are no differences in their use between the sexes, and there is no relationship between the level of intensity of their use and gender.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patti M. Valkenburg

Research into the impact of social media use (SMU) on well-being (e.g., happiness) and ill-being (e.g., depression) has exploded in the past years. From 2019 to August 2021, 26 reviews have been published: nine meta-analyses, nine systematic reviews, and eight narrative reviews that together included hundreds of empirical studies. The aim of this umbrella review was to synthesize the results of these reviews. Even though the meta-analyses were largely based on the same evidence, they yielded inconsistent effect sizes, especially for time spent on SM, active SMU, and passive SMU. This umbrella review explains why these effects sizes disagree, summarizes the gaps in the literature, and ends with some important recommendations for future reviews and empirical research.


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