WEEK 4 – Always connected: Opportunities and risks of social media
Screen time, social media use, and adolescent development
Odgers, C. L., Schueller, S. M., & Ito, M. (2020). Screen time, social media use, and adolescent development. Annua l Review of
Developmental Psychology, 2, 485-502.
Adolescents spend much of their daily lives online, and fears abound that digital technology
use, and social media in particular, is harming their social and emotional development.
Findings to date do not support causal or robust associations between social media use and
adolescents’ development. Instead, prior studies have produced a mix of small positive,
negative, and often null associations. The narrative around social media and adolescent
development has been negative, but empirical support for the story of increasing
deficits, disease, and disconnection is limited.
Are smartphones and social media use linked to adolescents’ mental health?
Adults have often been critical of how young people spend their time, and the negative
commentary regarding the time that contemporary adolescents spend online is no exception.
Both the academic literature and media coverage is full of claims that smartphone and
social media use contributes to, and in some cases causes, a wide-ranging list of ailments
and problems, for instance:
* Sleep disruption
* Rising obesity rates
* Deficits in social skills
* Reduced sexual activity
* Rising mental health problems
* Depression
* Anxiety
* Suicidal behavior in girls
These are serious charges that, if true, would identify a malleable target for interventions and,
by minimizing or eliminating exposure, could help to reduce the rise of mental health
problems among adolescents. However, to date there has not been strong empirical support
for these claims.
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,Two recent reviews both arrived at similar conclusions regarding what is currently known
about associations between screen time, social media, and adolescents’ mental health and
well-being:
* Both positive and negative associations
* When associations emerged, they were small and accounted for less than 1% of the
variation in adolescents’ well-being
* Reported links have been small and inconsistent.
Population-level estimation may mask potentially meaningful tech effects
Research to date has focused primarily on population-level estimates with no clear evidence
of consistent robust positive or negative associations between digital technology use and
adolescent mental health. For instance, these have been largely investigated:
A. Does social media use increase adolescent girls’ mental health risk?
B. Are adolescents with existing mental health vulnerabilities at greater risk?
C. Are adolescents from low-income households at increased risk in online spaces?
D. What are the potential risks and benefits for marginalized adolescents?
Next steps in the study of adolescent mental health and social media
The following advances in study design, measurement, and analytic approaches are required
to improve our understanding of the role social media may play in shaping, and potentially
supporting, adolescents’ mental health. These advancements are sorely needed given that this
field has relied almost exclusively on cross-sectional and correlational data to argue for
both the perils and the promise of digital technology for adolescents’ mental health. These
advances are hence needed:
1. Rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental studies focused on adolescents are
urgently needed
2. Move past simple screen time metrics and conceptualizations of screen time
3. Estimating heterogeneity in associations and effects
Can smartphones and social media be used as tools to support adolescents’ mental
health?
This section acknowledges that increasing numbers of adolescents are turning to online
spaces for information about mental health symptoms and reviews what is known about
the use of digital tools to support adolescents’ mental health.
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, Much of the current debate focuses on whether digital technology, most specifically smart-
phones, screen time, and social media, is harmful to adolescents’ mental health. However,
there is also a growing body of research exploring whether digital technologies can be
used to support adolescents’ mental health needs. Adolescents frequently report turning to
social media for information about:
A. Mental health
* A national survey found that the vast majority of teens and young adults
(87%) report going online for mental health information, with 42% going
online for information about anxiety and 30% going online for information
about depression
B. For support when they are struggling
When asked, many adolescents report multiple positive impacts of social media on their well-
being. In a nationally representative sample of teens, most respondents noted social media
offers a positive source of social support by boosting confidence and alleviating anxiety,
loneliness, and depression Research concluded that teens’ self-report of social media
use is predominantly positive and can be organized across four dimensions of:
1. Relational interactions
2. Self-expression
3. Exploration
4. Browsing
There is also evidence that adolescents might be more comfortable seeking certain types
of support online or that online communication might offer opportunities beyond traditional
spaces. Some noted benefits of online help seeking by adolescents include:
A. Anonymity
B. Privacy
C. Immediacy
D. Ease of access
E. Inclusivity
F. Ability to connect with others and share experiences
G. Greater sense of control
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