News or social media? Socio-economic divide of mobile service consumption

Collective pronouns, collective health actions: Predicting pandemic precautionary measures through online first-person plural pronoun usage across U.S. states

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the role of group identification in shaping collective health behaviors. Using the novel Pronoun-Influenced Collective Health Model - an integrated framework combining elements from health and social psychology theories - we investigated the relationship between online first-person plural pronoun usage and adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures across the United States. Analyzing weekly Google Trends data on English (Study 1) and Spanish (Study 2) first-person pronoun searches, alongside data on adherence to pandemic precautionary measures from early 2020 to late 2022, we found significant positive associations between relative first-person plural pronoun search volumes and adherence to social distancing, stay-at-home orders, vaccination rates, and proactive disease prevention information seeking. These associations remained robust after adjusting for potential confounding factors. A mini meta-analysis (Study 3) confirmed the consistency of our findings, revealing no significant moderation effects by language context or ecological-socio-cultural factors, suggesting broad generalizability. The implications of this research highlight the potential for tracking online collective language as a valuable indicator of and proxy for societal-level health engagement during crises. This novel digital linguistics approach, synergistically combining applied health and social psychology with big data from digital platforms such as Google, offers powerful tools for monitoring collective health actions across linguistic and cultural boundaries during large-scale health crises.

Smartphone use and well-being of adolescent girls: a population-based study

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Recent studies have reported an increasing incidence of anxiety among adolescent girls, and associated this with self-reported social media use. This study aimed to measure smartphone and social media use objectively and to evaluate its associations with measures of mental health and well-being.

METHODS

In autumn 2022, we recruited a cohort of 1164 first-year female students from 21 socioeconomically diverse high schools. Students responded to an online survey comprising validated questionnaires (Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS), Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7, and Body Appreciation Scale 2) and visual analogue scales of current health, mood, tiredness, and loneliness. We also requested that they attach screenshots depicting their smartphone use.

RESULTS

Among participants (mean age 16.3 years), 16% (n=183) had possible social media addiction and 37% (n=371) exceeded the cut-off for possible anxiety disorders. The BSMAS scores were associated with higher anxiety (r=0.380) and poorer body image (r=-0.268), poorer health (r=-0.252), lower mood (r=-0.261), greater tiredness (r=0.347), and greater loneliness (r=0.226) (p<0.001 for all). Among the 564 adolescents (48%) who sent screenshots of their smartphone use, average daily use was 5.8 hours (SD 2.2), including 3.9 hours (SD 2.0) of social media. Participants who sent screenshots had a higher grade point average than participants without screenshot data, but similar BSMAS and well-being measures.

CONCLUSIONS

Consistent with other studies, we found social media addiction was common among adolescent girls and was associated with poorer mental health and well-being. Measures should be taken to protect adolescents from the potential harmful effects of social media use.

Social media influencers and adolescents' health: A scoping review of the research field

Social media influencers (SMIs) have become an important source of health information for adolescents. However, the lack of expertise and commercial interests of SMIs pose challenges for adolescent health. To gain a better understanding of these challenges, this scoping review aimed to synthesize existing research on the role of SMIs in adolescent health. Using the PRISMA-ScR approach, we conducted a comprehensive search of eight databases and screened articles based on predefined criteria. The final sample included 51 articles published between 2012 and 2022. Results revealed inconsistent definitions and classifications of SMIs. The most common topics included appearance, nutrition, and substance use, while mental and sexual health topics were underrepresented. The ability of SMIs to establish trustworthy relationships with their followers was highlighted in the reviewed studies, shedding light on potential benefits and challenges for adolescent health. However, most studies focused on the negative roles of SMIs, such as the promotion of unrealistic body images, unhealthy diets, substance use, and inaccurate diagnosis and treatment advice. In addition, inappropriate advertising of unhealthy products (e.g., junk food, tobacco products and alcohol) was identified as a major challenge. The reviewed studies identified stricter regulation and improved social media and health literacy as important avenues for policy action. Less attention was given to the potential positive impact of SMIs and how to effectively include them in health promotion campaigns. In addition, the majority of studies were conducted in the Global North and relied on quantitative approaches, resulting in a lack of representation of minority populations and male adolescents.

Parents' Opinions About Pediatric Otolaryngology on Social Media

OBJECTIVE

Social media is a novel tool that many parents turn to when looking for a new healthcare provider. The purpose of this study is to assess how parents of children attending a pediatric otolaryngology practice engage with social media.

STUDY DESIGN

Survey.

SETTING

Two pediatric otolaryngology clinics associated with a tertiary care children's hospital in Buffalo, NY.

METHODS

Parents of children aged <18 years were surveyed. The survey consisted of 25 questions divided into 5 categories: demographics, social media accounts, social media use, use of social media to interact with pediatric otolaryngologists, and perception of pediatric otolaryngologists' social media accounts. Frequencies were calculated.

RESULTS

Three hundred five parent participants were included. 247 (81.0) were female and 57 (18.97) were male. 258 (84.6%) of the participants reported use of Facebook, which was the most popular social media platform. 238 (78.0%) of participants indicated that they would want to see medical posts and 98 (32.1%) participants indicated that they would want to see personal posts on the pediatric otolaryngologist's social media page. Younger parents were statistically more likely to check social media more often (P = .001) and seek a pediatric otolaryngologist's social media before seeing them (P = .018).

CONCLUSION

Use of social media by pediatric otolaryngologists may positively impact the way a small percentage of their patients' parents perceive them. Social media accounts do not appear to be a vital part of pediatric otolaryngology practice in 2022.

Towards a new paradigm for segregation measurement in an age of big data

Recent theoretical and methodological advances in activity space and big data provide new opportunities to study socio-spatial segregation. This review first provides an overview of the literature in terms of measurements, spatial patterns, underlying causes, and social consequences of spatial segregation. These studies are mainly place-centred and static, ignoring the segregation experience across various activity spaces due to the dynamism of movements. In response to this challenge, we highlight the work in progress toward a new paradigm for segregation studies. Specifically, this review presents how and the extent to which activity space methods can advance segregation research from a people-based perspective. It explains the requirements of mobility-based methods for quantifying the dynamics of segregation due to high movement within the urban context. It then discusses and illustrates a dynamic and multi-dimensional framework to show how big data can enhance understanding segregation by capturing individuals’ spatio-temporal behaviours. The review closes with new directions and challenges for segregation research using big data.

Awakening City: Traces of the Circadian Rhythm within the Mobile Phone Network Data

In this study, call detail records (CDR), covering Budapest, Hungary, are processed to analyze the circadian rhythm of the subscribers. An indicator, called wake-up time, is introduced to describe the behavior of a group of subscribers. It is defined as the time when the mobile phone activity of a group rises in the morning. Its counterpart is the time when the activity falls in the evening. Inhabitant and area-based aggregation are also presented. The former is to consider the people who live in an area, while the latter uses the transit activity in an area to describe the behavior of a part of the city. The opening hours of the malls and the nightlife of the party district are used to demonstrate this application as real-life examples. The proposed approach is also used to estimate the working hours of the workplaces. The findings are in a good agreement with the practice in Hungary, and also support the workplace detection method. A negative correlation is found between the wake-up time and mobility indicators (entropy, radius of gyration): on workdays, people wake up earlier and travel more, while on holidays, it is quite the contrary. The wake-up time is evaluated in different socioeconomic classes, using housing prices and mobile phones prices, as well. It is found that lower socioeconomic groups tend to wake up earlier.