Where it Hurts the Most: Peer Interactions on Social Media and in Person are Differentially Associated with Emotional Reactivity and Sustained Affect Among Adolescent Girls

Feeling socially connected to others is linked to better emotion regulation in adolescent girls' daily lives: An ecological momentary assessment study

Developing effective emotion regulation ability to manage negative emotion (NE) is critical during adolescence. Social baseline theory posits social connectedness may impact adolescents' everyday emotion regulation. This study examined the relation between social connectedness and NE after a negative social interaction (emotion regulation) and whether contextual factors moderate the association. Adolescent girls (N = 114; Mage = 12.26, SD = 0.8) from a midsized Midwestern U.S. city (67.5% White, 19.3% Black/African American, 9.6% biracial, 1.8% Asian, 1.8% Native American/other race; 8.8% Latinx) completed a 16-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) protocol, reporting current NE, current social context and social connectedness, peak NE, and receipt of co-regulatory support. Multilevel models were used to examine direct associations of social connectedness on emotion regulation, defined as current NE regressed on peak NE, and moderation of the social connectedness-emotion regulation association by social context, co-regulatory support, and adolescent shyness. Greater within- and between-person social connectedness was associated with better emotion regulation (greater reductions in NE). However, the within-person association depended on girls' social context: Compared to being with solely peers and/or non-family, being with family was associated with a weaker association between social connectedness and emotion regulation. Similarly, receiving in-the-moment co-regulatory support was associated with a weakened link between within-person social connectedness and emotion regulation, which appeared to be driven by reports of co-rumination. Results indicate that social connectedness is associated with better emotion regulation among girls, particularly in interactions with peers and non-family compared to family, highlighting the value of social connection with peers and non-family members. However, co-rumination disrupts the benefits of social connectedness, suggesting social connectedness is not beneficial during maladaptive co-regulatory processes.

The link between adolescent girls' interpersonal emotion regulation with parents and peers and depressive symptoms: A real-time investigation

Adolescents often experience heightened socioemotional sensitivity warranting their use of regulatory strategies. Yet, little is known about how key socializing agents help regulate teens' negative emotions in daily life and implications for long-term adjustment. We examined adolescent girls' interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) with parents and peers in response to negative social interactions, defined as parent and peer involvement in the teen's enactment of emotion regulation strategies. We also tested associations between rates of daily parental and peer IER and depressive symptoms, concurrently and one year later. Adolescent girls (N = 112; Mage = 12.39) at temperamental risk for depressive disorders completed a 16-day ecological momentary assessment protocol measuring reactivity to negative social interactions, parental and peer IER, and current negative affect. Results indicated that adolescents used more adaptive strategies with peers and more maladaptive strategies with parents in daily life. Both parental and peer IER down-regulated negative affect, reflected by girls' decreased likelihood of experiencing continued negative affect. Higher proportions of parental adaptive IER predicted reduced depressive symptoms one year later. Findings suggest that both parents and peers effectively help adolescent girls down-regulate everyday negative emotions; however, parents may offer more enduring benefits for long-term adjustment.

The Role of Neural Sensitivity to Social Evaluation in Understanding "for Whom" Social Media Use May Impact Emotional Health During Adolescence

There is much interest in the role of social media (SM) in the current mental health crisis among teens. In this review, we focus on the question of "for whom" SM experiences have the strongest impact on emotional health, considering neural sensitivity to social evaluation as a potential vulnerability factor that makes youth more susceptible to the effects of SM. We first present behavioral evidence showing that sensitivity to social evaluation moderates the link between SM use and emotional health in youth. Next, we show that the brain's affective salience network responds to simulated online social threats in ways that predict emotional health. Finally, we show evidence that neural sensitivity to online social evaluation moderates the effects of peer social experiences on emotional health, with implications for social media experiences. We end with recommendations for fully testing the model.

Overthinking over Screens: Girls Ruminate More After Negative Social Media Interactions with Peers Compared to In-Person Interactions

With the rise and ubiquity of social media (SM), the context for peer interactions has changed drastically for adolescents, yet, little is known about how digital peer interactions compare to in-person interactions in their impact on adolescents' emotional experiences. Adolescents employ various emotion regulation (ER) strategies to navigate the complexities of peer interactions, with varying strategy adaptiveness and efficacy. This study delves into the prevalence of ER strategies following daily negative peer interactions on SM, exploring to what extent context (SM or in-person) influences the selection of ER strategies. Over 16 days, 106 U.S. adolescent girls, aged 11-13 (half at high risk for developing an affective disorder), participated in ecological momentary assessments, detailing their worst recent peer interactions, the context (SM or in-person), and the subsequent ER strategies employed. Multilevel models revealed that teens were more prone to rumination after negative peer interactions on SM than in-person (OR = 2.08, p = .031), after adjusting for the overall prevalence of SM and in-person interactions. No other significant differences emerged in ER strategy selection based on the context of the interaction. Findings highlight that although adolescents may adapt their ER strategy selection to suit the demands of specific interpersonal situations across contexts, negative peer interactions on SM may lead to more rumination, potentially contributing to the link between SM use and depression. We discuss how unique features of SM might elicit rumination, such as SM's lack of physical social cues and its permanent, public, and asynchronous nature.

Positive and negative social media experiences and proximal risk for suicidal ideation in adolescents

BACKGROUND

Social media (SM) has received considerable attention as a potential risk factor for adolescent suicide. Few empirical studies, however, have examined adolescents' daily negative and positive experiences on SM and its proximal impacts on suicidal ideation (SI), particularly using intensive monitoring designs.

METHOD

Adolescents (N = 60; 14-17 years; 49% girls; 62% LGBTQ+) recruited using SM across the United States and participated in an 8-week intensive monitoring protocol. Ecological momentary assessment (three brief surveys per day) asked about negative and positive SM experiences and SI (passive and active). Multilevel modelling was used to evaluate the within-person relationships between daily SM experiences (e.g. individual fluctuations compared to a person's average) and SI, controlling for average levels of SM experiences, SM use screen time, and lifetime SI.

RESULTS

Significant within-person effects of negative and positive SM experiences were associated with days when adolescents had SI. Specifically, on days when teens endorsed more frequent negative SM experiences than usual, they were more likely to report SI. However, more positive SM experiences than usual were associated with a lower likelihood of having SI. There were no significant effects of SM use ('screen time') on SI or on the reverse associations of SI on next-day SM experiences.

CONCLUSIONS

Results indicate that SM experiences may be dynamic and modifiable risk and protective factors for SI in adolescents, whereas there is no effect of SM screen time on SI. Our results highlight that targeting negative SM experiences and augmenting the positive experiences on SM may be critical targets to improve teens' mental health and prevent suicide, rather than focusing on limiting SM screen time.

Digital Media Use Preference Indirectly Relates to Adolescent Social Anxiety Symptoms Through Delta-Beta Coupling

Adolescence is a period of profound biological and social-emotional development during which social anxiety symptoms commonly emerge. Over the past several decades, the social world of teens has been transformed by pervasive digital media use (e.g., social media, messaging apps), highlighting the urgent need to examine links between digital media use and mental health. Prior work suggests that a preference to use digital media to communicate emotions, rather than face-to-face contexts, is associated with emotion regulation vulnerabilities. Difficulties with emotion regulation are a hallmark of elevated anxiety, and the maturation of frontal-subcortical circuitry underlying emotion regulation may make adolescents especially vulnerable to the possible detrimental effects of digital media use. The current study leveraged an emerging neurophysiological correlate of emotion regulation, delta-beta coupling, which captures cortical-subcortical coherence during resting state. We test links among digital media use preferences, delta-beta coupling, and anxiety symptoms with a sample of 80 adolescents (47 females; 33 males) ages 12-15 years (M = 13.9, SD = 0.6) (80% White, 2% Black/African American, 16% more than one race, 2% Hispanic/Latine). Youth had their EEG recorded during 6 min of resting-state baseline from which delta-beta coupling was generated. Youth self-reported their social anxiety symptoms and preferences for digital media use vs face-to-face modalities. Greater digital media use preferences for both positive and negative social-emotional communication were associated with elevated social anxiety symptoms indirectly through high delta-beta coupling. This suggests that neural regulatory imbalance may be a pathway through which adolescents' habitual preferences for digital media use over face-to-face communication relate to elevated social anxiety.

Neural Reactivity to Social Reward Moderates the Association Between Social Media Use and Momentary Positive Affect in Adolescents

Peer relationships take on increasing importance during adolescence, and there has been considerable debate about the effects of social media use on adolescent emotional health. Little work has examined individual differences in brain function that might impact these associations. In this study, we examined the reward positivity (RewP) to social and monetary reward as a moderator of the relation between social media use and concurrent momentary affect in adolescents. Participants were 145 adolescents aged 14-17 (M = 15.23; SD = 1.08; 64.1% female; 71.7% White) at varying risk for depression (47 high-risk based on maternal depression history, 50 low-risk, 48 currently depressed). Measures of social media use, positive affect (PA), and negative affect (NA) were obtained through ecological momentary assessment. In a laboratory session, adolescents completed a computerized peer feedback task and a monetary reward task to elicit the RewP to social and monetary reward feedback. Multilevel models indicated that social media use and a smaller RewP to monetary rewards were associated with lower PA. However, social (but not monetary) reward responsiveness moderated the effect of social media use on momentary PA, such that social media use was associated with lower PA for adolescents with a relatively blunted RewP to peer acceptance, but not for those with an enhanced social RewP. Exploratory analyses indicated that this moderation effect was specific to female adolescents. The results highlight neural reactivity to social reward as a potential factor contributing to variability in the effect of social media use on affective health.

Preference for digital media use, biobehavioral attention bias, and anxiety symptoms in adolescents

Adolescence is a critical developmental period of biological and social change during which 1 in 3 youth experience significant anxiety symptoms. The social-emotional lives of the majority of adolescents are largely conducted via digital media use (DMU; e.g., social media, text messaging). Yet the past decade of research on DMU and anxiety has yielded mixed results (e.g., Keles et al., 2020 review), leaving the complex role that DMU might play in the emergence and maintenance of anxiety poorly understood. A key step forward is to leverage psychophysiology to identify individual differences in cognitive and emotional processes that confer vulnerability to potential negative effects of DMU. Further, given the ubiquity of DMU, a greater focus is needed on measurements that move beyond sheer frequency to capture DMU in comparison to face-to-face (FTF) social interactions. This study examined attention bias (AB), characterized by selective and exaggerated attention toward or away from threat, as a moderator of the link between DMU and anxiety in adolescents (N = 75; 42 female) aged 12-14 years (M = 13.28, SD = 0.87). AB was indexed during a dot probe task using reaction time metrics (i.e., trial-level bias) and via ERPs capturing attentional selection and discrimination (N170) and cognitive control (N2) to threat compared to neutral faces. AB moderated associations between DMU and anxiety. A greater preference to use DMU vs FTF predicted greater anxiety among those with a greater behavioral bias away from threat, blunted N170, and blunted N2 in the presence of threat. Future research should examine potential causal and bidirectional links between DMU and anxiety and explore whether preferences for technology-mediated interactions and individual differences in threat processing increase risk.

Perceived functions and importance of digital media use and adolescent depression and suicidal ideation

INTRODUCTION

Although social media (SM) use is nearly ubiquitous among adolescents, there is a lack of clarity concerning the relationship between SM use and mental health outcomes like depression and suicidal ideation (SI), which increase during adolescence. Much of the previous literature has focused on the frequency of SM use; however, the current study examined the relationship between the perceived importance of three types of interactions and functions of SM use and depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation.

METHODS

A sample of 4057 adolescents (M age = 14.6; 47.0% girls; 69.0% Non-Hispanic/Latine White) were recruited via an online survey manager between February and March 2019. Participants completed the Adolescent Digital Technology Interactions and Importance (ADTI) Scale, which assessed the perceived importance of bridging online and offline experiences (bridging), going outside one's identity or offline experience (identity), and facilitating social connections (social). Participants also completed measures of depressive symptoms and SI and a self-report measure of SM use. A series of path analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between bridging, identity, social, and depressive symptoms and SI.

RESULTS

After accounting for covariates (gender identity, racial identity, age, and SM use), bridging was negatively associated with depressive symptoms, whereas identity was positively associated with depressive symptoms. Bridging and social connection were negatively associated with SI, whereas identity was positively associated with SI. Gender moderated these relationships; however, racial identity did not.

CONCLUSION

The results highlight the importance of understanding adolescent SM use beyond screen time in relation to depression and SI.

The benefit and limitations of an online physical activity program in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: A quantitative analysis of the virtual Latrobe Streetgames program

ISSUE ADDRESSED

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the closure of many physical activity programs, with many online programs being created in place to maintain physical activity engagement. This study explored the outcomes of an online physical program on its participants.

METHOD

A validated survey was used to explore Virtual Streetgames (VSG) participants' perceptions about their physical, mental, and social health while participating in VGS. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to evaluate the impact of the online format.

RESULTS

Many VSG participants were not achieving their daily physical activity recommendations, with a considerable portion of individuals feeling frustrated at not being able to socialise. A substantial difference was seen between adults and adolescents, with increased adult activity rates for those adults participating in VSG. Despite this influence on physical well-being, VSG did not seem to influence mental or social wellbeing.

CONCLUSIONS

The results give detail into how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced adolescent and young adult physical, mental, and social health, noting that the reduction of in-person contact influenced motivation for exercise. Online physical activity programs may have some positive impact in improving adult physical activity rates, but they are not as effective as face-to-face programs in improving overall well-being. SO WHAT?: The findings of this study suggest that online physical activity programs may not be as effective as face-to-face programs in improving overall well-being. Future research should explore ways to improve the social and motivational aspects of online physical activity programs to maximise their benefits for participants.

Social Media Use as a Predictor of Positive and Negative Affect: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study of Adolescents with and without Clinical Depression

Social media use is common in adolescents, with implications for psychosocial development and the emergence of depression. Yet, little is known about the time-linked connections between social media use and adolescents' affective experiences and how they may differ between depressed and non-depressed youth. We leveraged ecological momentary assessment in adolescents oversampled for current depression to examine (1) associations between social media use and concurrent and later positive and negative affect and (2) sex and presence of a depressive disorder as moderators of these associations. Adolescents aged 14-17 with (n = 48) and without (n = 97) clinical depression, as indicated via clinical interview, reported momentary social media use and positive and negative affect seven times per day for one week. Multilevel modeling indicated that social media use was associated with reduced positive affect both concurrently and at the next assessment. Further, among clinically depressed youth only, social media use was associated with reduced negative affect at the next assessment. Results suggest that social media use may reduce both positive and negative affect, highlighting the nuanced relation between adolescent social media use and emotional health and laying the groundwork for future research to address several open questions.

Adolescent coping and social media use moderated anxiety change during the COVID-19 pandemic

INTRODUCTION

Adolescence is a sensitive period during which stressors and social disruptions uniquely contribute to anxiety symptoms. Adolescent's coping strategies (i.e., avoidance and approach) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may be differentially related to anxiety symptom changes. Further, social media use (SMU) is ubiquitous and may serve as an avenue to deploy avoidant and/or approach coping.

METHOD

Participants included 265 adolescents (ages 12-20 years; 55.8% female, 43.8% male) and one parent per adolescent. At two time points separated by ~6 months, adolescents reported on SMU and coping strategies, and parents and adolescents reported demographic information and adolescents' anxiety symptoms. Data were collected online in the United States, from summer 2020 through spring 2021.

RESULTS

Increases in avoidant coping predicted increasing anxiety, particularly when approach coping decreased. Decreases in both avoidant coping and SMU coincided with decreasing anxiety. Older adolescents showed decreasing anxiety when avoidant coping declined and SMU increased.

CONCLUSION

Coping strategies and SMU predicted patterns of adolescent anxiety symptom change across 6 months during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results highlight that coping and SMU should be contextualized within the time course of stressors.

Daily and average associations of physical activity, social media use, and sleep among adolescent girls during the COVID-19 pandemic

Adolescents' daily lives have been disrupted during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It remains unclear how changes in adolescents' daily physical and social behaviours affect their sleep. The present study examined the daily and average effects of physical activity and social media use (i.e., video chatting, texting, and social networking sites) on adolescent girls' sleep during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adolescent girls aged 12-17 years (N = 93; 69% White) from a larger longitudinal study completed a 10-day daily diary protocol during state-mandated stay-at-home orders. Girls reported on daily sleep (duration, timing, quality), physical activity, and social media use during COVID-19. Multilevel modelling was used to examine the within- and between-person effects of physical activity and social media on sleep duration, timing, and quality during the 10-day period. Between-person associations indicate that youth with greater social media use (texting, video chatting, and social networking) and less physical activity had later sleep timing across the 10-day study period. Only video chatting was associated with shorter sleep duration. There were no within-person effects of physical activity or social media activities on sleep outcomes. Findings indicate that physical activity and social media use may impact later adolescent sleep timing during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be critical for research to examine the potential long-term costs of delayed sleep timing, and whether targeting specific youth behaviours associated with sleep and circadian disruption improve mental and physical health during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Emotional Responses to Social Media Experiences Among Adolescents: Longitudinal Associations with Depressive Symptoms

OBJECTIVE

The degree to which adolescent social media use is associated with depressive symptoms has been the source of considerable debate. Prior studies have been limited by a reliance on cross-sectional data and measures of overall "screen time." This study examines prospective associations between adolescents' emotional responses to social media experiences and depressive symptoms, and examines gender differences in these processes.

METHOD

A school-based sample of 687 adolescents (48.6% girls; Mage = 14.3; 38.1% White, 29.4% Hispanic, 23.0% Black) completed measures of positive and negative emotional responses to social media experiences and depressive symptoms at two time points, one year apart.

RESULTS

Higher levels of depressive symptoms were associated with more frequent negative emotional responses to social media experiences one year later, whereas greater positive emotional responses to social media were associated with later depressive symptoms. Girls reported overall greater emotional responses to social media experiences, but gender did not moderate associations between these emotional responses and depressive symptoms.

CONCLUSION

Findings highlight the importance of examining adolescents' positive and negative emotional experiences in the context of social media use, and the ways in which these experiences intersect with depressive symptoms, so as to identify youth who may be most vulnerable to negative effects of social media use.

The Use of Social Networking Sites and Its Impact on Adolescents' Emotional Well-Being: a Scoping Review

Purpose of Review

The rapid development of social networking sites (SNSs) has affected adolescents' well-being with great impact on social experience. In this scoping review, we aimed to map out what is known from the most recent literature about adolescents' emotional well-being and the role of emotional regulation skills in preventing problematic SNS use. We used the Arksey and O'Malley methodological framework, and we based the study selection procedure on the PRISMA process. Then, we selected 52 English and peer-reviewed papers from PubMed, MEDLINE, PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, Wiley Online Library, and Web of Science.

Recent Findings

We found both positive and negative effects of SNS use on adolescents' emotions with online self-presentation and social comparison as key mechanisms to explain differences in subjective well-being. The risk of developing problematic use of SNSs is influenced by time spent on SNSs, active or passive use, and adolescents' social and emotional skills.

Summary

This review suggested the importance of emotional experiences and social support in both in-person and online interactions. Future research is needed to provide the basis for a better forthcoming classification of problematic SNS use.

Peer victimization, schooling format, and adolescent internalizing symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic: Between- and within-person associations across ninth grade

The current longitudinal study examined how between-person (BP) differences and within-person (WP) fluctuations in adolescents' peer victimization and schooling format across ninth grade related to changes in their internalizing symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were 388 adolescents (61% female; Mage = 14.02) who completed three online surveys, administered 3 months apart, from November 2020 to May 2021. Multilevel modeling revealed BP (time-invariant) and WP (time-varying) effects of peer victimization and school instructional format (i.e., in-person; hybrid; online) on internalizing symptoms while accounting for potentially confounding demographic (e.g., gender) and contextual (e.g., COVID-19 positivity rates) factors. Results indicated that adolescents who experienced higher overall levels of peer victimization across the school year, compared to those who experienced lower victimization, reported more severe internalizing symptoms. Whereas relative WP increases in peer victimization predicted corresponding increases in adolescents' depressive and somatic symptoms regardless of schooling format, WP increases in peer victimization only predicted elevated anxiety during months when students attended fully in-person, but not online, school. Adolescents who spent a greater proportion of their school year attending online school also reported less peer victimization across the year. Findings highlight WP fluctuations in the effects of peer victimization on internalizing and contextual variations depending on schooling format.

Picture Perfect During a Pandemic? Body Image Concerns and Depressive Symptoms in U.S. Adolescent Girls During the COVID-19 Lockdown

The stay-at-home orders of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted U.S. adolescents' lives in numerous ways during the spring of 2020, including substantial changes to in-person routines and increased reliance on digital media. For adolescent girls, stay-at-home practices may have implications for body image concerns. In this research brief, we examine adolescent girls' pandemic-related body image concerns and longitudinal associations with depressive symptoms. The sample included 93 U.S. adolescent girls (M _age = 15.01; 68.8% White), with approximately 2/3 at temperamental risk for depression. Participants self-reported their depressive symptoms and pandemic-related body image concerns via online surveys at three assessments: Time 1 occurred in April/May 2020, approximately one month into stay-at-home orders, followed by two-week and seven-month follow-up assessments. Two pandemic-related body image concerns were assessed: (1) concerns about disrupted appearance-management routines and (2) evaluating one's appearance on video-chat. Both forms of pandemic-related body image concerns predicted depressive symptoms two weeks later, and concerns about disrupted routines also predicted depressive symptoms seven months later. In an era of social distancing, frequent technology-based interactions, and disrupted routines, future work should continue to investigate adolescents' body image concerns and the implications for longer-term mental health outcomes.

#Grateful: Longitudinal Associations Between Adolescents' Social Media Use and Gratitude During the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, some ways of using social media-such as directly communicating with friends-may have helped adolescents thrive. We examined longitudinal associations between high school adolescents' social media use and gratitude across a 15-month period before and during the pandemic (n = 704, Mage  = 15.10; 52% girls). The trajectories of gratitude and the importance of social media for meaningful conversations with friends-but not frequency of social media use-were positively associated over time. At the within-person level, gratitude predicted increased importance of social media for meaningful conversations, but not vice-versa. Findings suggest that gratitude may be associated with and may motivate using social media to foster social connection, but may not increase overall social media use.