Social constraints associated with excessive internet use in adolescents: the role of family, school, peers, and neighbourhood

The associations between social environment and adolescents’ psychosomatic health: An ecological perspective

Objectives

It has been known that social environments are associated with adolescents’ health. However, the complex relationship between diverse types of social environments and adolescents’ psychosomatic heath remained unclear. Thus, using an ecological perspective, the current study aimed to examine the associations between social environment and adolescents’ psychosomatic health.

Methods

We used the data from the Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) project conducted in the Czech Republic in 2018. A total of 13377 observations were included.

Results

The region, as a macrosystem, could not explain the variance in adolescents’ psychological and somatic health. The quality of neighborhood environment (exosystem) was significantly related to adolescents’ psychological and somatic health. At the microsystem level, teacher support had stronger, family support had weaker, and peer support had no association with psychological and somatic health. At the mesosystem level, the interactions between family, teacher, and friend support were negligible for adolescents’ psychological and somatic health.

Conclusions

The results underscore the importance of teachers’ support and neighborhood environment for adolescents’ psychosomatic health. Therefore, the findings suggest the need to improve teacher-adolescent relationships and the neighborhood community quality.

Unpacking the relation between children's use of digital technologies and children's well-being: A scoping review

Over the last decade, a substantial number of studies have addressed children's use of technologies and their impact on well-being. Nonetheless, there is still a lack of clarity on the operationalisation of technology use, well-being, and the relation between the two. This scoping review intended to shed lights on Digital Technologies Use, its operationalisation, and the relation between Digital Technologies Negative Use (DTNU) and children's well-being. For the scope of the special issue we focused on negative use. Results showed two conceptualisations of DTNU: compulsive/addictive use of devices and the Internet (e.g., Internet addiction) and negative online experiences/risky behaviours (e.g., cyberbullying). Well-being in relation to DTNU was mainly studied in terms of psycho/social dimensions (e.g., depression), and a gap in cognitive well-being studies was identified. Study designs were largely quantitative, and, in most studies, well-being was considered as a predictor of DTNU. Also, research with children under 12 years was lacking. Future research on DTNU should look at: how dimensions of addiction and negative online experiences relate; provide more evidence on cognitive well-being; explore the interplay of well-being multiple components relying on integrative conceptual frameworks. The recent notion of digital well-being should also be explored considering the results of this review.