Values-Alignment Messaging Boosts Adolescents' Motivation to Control Social Media Use

Promoting adolescents' pro-environmental behavior: A motive-alignment approach

Most adolescents are concerned about climate change. What helps them to act on their concerns? This preregistered randomized experiment tested whether adolescents' pro-environmental behavior can be promoted by framing the behavior as compatible with their autonomy motive. Dutch adolescents (N = 319, ages 12-17, 57.7% girls, predominantly indicating "Dutch" or "bicultural" identities) viewed a campaign-style video that explained the causes of climate change (all conditions), and additionally framed pro-environmental behavior as a personal choice (volition-alignment), opportunity to rebel (rebellion-alignment), or mandatory (misalignment). Rebellion-alignment increased pro-environmental behavior intentions and petitioning behavior; misalignment decreased pro-environmental donating behavior. Effect sizes were small to medium. These findings provide proof of concept that motive alignment can be effective in promoting adolescents' pro-environmental engagement.

Sociocultural, Behavioral, and Physical Correlates of Excessive Social Media Use, Addiction, and Motivation Toward Reduction in a Hispanic College Student Sample

Social media use has been associated with adverse health consequences. However, there is limited research assessing correlates of social media use, addiction, failure to control use, and motivation to reduce use in a Hispanic sample. This study aimed to fill this gap by assessing factors within the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Framework. Participants were Hispanic college students (n = 273) residing either in the United States or Mexico who completed an online survey. Univariate analyses determined independent variables to be assessed in four linear regression models. Results indicated that weekly social media use was negatively associated with sex, attentional impulsivity, and social comparison and positively associated with social media craving (SMC). Social media addiction was positively associated with frequency of posting in Spanish, Fear of Missing Out, SMC, and home restriction of social media use. Social media self-control failure was negatively associated with acculturative language and positively associated with frequency of posting in English, attentional impulsiveness, SMC, and home restriction of social media use. Motivation to reduce social media use was positively associated with residing in the United States. Clinical implications include targeting key factors through tailored interventions aimed at promoting adaptive social media use patterns.

Wanting to matter and learning to care: A neurodevelopmental window of opportunity for (Pro) social learning?

Wanting to matter-to feel socially recognized, appreciated, and capable of actions that benefit others-represents a fundamental motivation in human development. The motivational salience of mattering appears to increase in adolescence. Evidence suggests this is related to pubertal increases in the incentive salience for gaining social value and personal agency. This can provide a useful heuristic for understanding motivational proclivities (i.e. wanting to matter) that influence action-outcome learning as young adolescents are exploring and learning how to navigate increasingly complex social and relational environments. Adolescence also brings new capacities, motives, and opportunities for learning to care about and contribute to the benefit of others. Together, these create a window of opportunity: a sensitive period for learning to gain salient feelings of mattering through caring prosocial actions and valued societal contributions. Successfully discovering ways of mattering by doing things that matter to others may contribute to formative socio-emotional learning about self/other. Advances in understanding these social and relational learning processes and their neurodevelopmental underpinnings can inform strategies to improve developmental trajectories of social competence and wellbeing among adolescents growing up in a rapidly changing and increasingly techno-centric world.

Daily links between objective smartphone use and sleep among adolescents

INTRODUCTION

Concerns abound on how digital technology such as smartphone use may impair adolescent sleep. Although these linkages are supported in cross-sectional studies, research involving intensive longitudinal assessments and objective measures has called into question the robustness of associations.

METHODS

In this study, a sample of ethnically diverse U.S. adolescents (N = 71; Mage = 16.49; 56% girls) wore Fitbit devices and submitted screenshots of their smartphone screen time, pickups, and notifications over a 14-day period in 2021. The Fitbits recorded nightly sleep quality and sleep onset. Adolescents also completed daily diaries reporting the previous night's sleep onset time and sleep quality.

RESULTS

On days when adolescents engaged in greater nighttime screen time and, to some extent, pickups relative to their own average, they also had poorer sleep outcomes that night. Greater screen time was associated with later self-reported and Fitbit-recorded sleep onset and poorer self-reported sleep quality. Greater pickups was associated with later self-reported and Fitbit-recorded sleep onset. Smartphone use during the day did not relate to sleep outcomes, indicating the importance of distinguishing nighttime from daytime use.

CONCLUSIONS

Parents and clinicians should help adolescents develop healthy digital skills to avoid exacerbating sleep problems that are known to occur during this developmental period.

Leveraging Digital Media to Promote Youth Mental Health: Flipping the Script on Social Media-Related Risk

Purpose of Review

Despite growing public concern about the negative impact of digital media for mental health problems, there are key ways in which digital media can be leveraged to prevent such outcomes. This article reviews research exploring the ways that digital media, particularly social media, can be used to prevent negative mental health outcomes and promote youth mental health and well-being.

Recent findings

Research indicates that media can be protective against mental health problems and promote mental health by enabling social support and destigmatizing mental illness, especially for youth with limited resources. Media also can be leveraged to identify those at risk, to educate, provide resources, and promote well-being, and to track symptoms and intervene to prevent or mitigate negative mental health outcomes. There is limited research on interventions designed to reduce the negative effects of digital media on mental health, especially those that harness media itself, a critical area of future research.

Summary

This article provides a summary of the current evidence on this topic, highlights key directions for future research, and provides evidence-based recommendations for adolescents, families, educators, clinicians, industry, and policy-makers to prevent mental health problems related to media.

Longitudinal and daily associations between adolescent self-control and digital technology use

There is fear that adolescents have limited control over their digital technology use. The current research examines longitudinal (Study 1) and daily (Study 2) associations between U.S. adolescents' self-control and digital technological impairment and use. Using a large sample (N = 2,104; Wave 1: Mage = 12.36, 52% female, 57% economically disadvantaged, 48% racial minority), Study 1 tested how changes in adolescents' self-control and perceived technological impairment co-occur across time (between-person associations) and if self-control and perceived impairment are prospectively and bidirectionally associated with each other (within-person associations). There was evidence of between-person associations, in that poorer self-control and perceived technological impairment both increase over adolescence, and these increases are positively associated with each other. However, there was no evidence of prospective within-person associations. Using a subsample from Study 1 (N = 388), Study 2 found support for a between-person association for self-control and using digital technology for entertainment, in which adolescents who reported poorer self-control relative to their peers also engaged in greater digital technology use for entertainment. There was no robust support for within-person associations. These findings suggest that adolescents with poorer self-control may have established tendencies to experience greater technological impairment and use more digital technology for entertainment, but the lack of within-person associations indicate caution is needed for a cause-and-effect relation. Adolescents with existing poorer self-control may be more vulnerable to problematic digital technology use in a developmental period where digital technology is particularly rewarding, and intervention and prevention efforts should be geared toward these adolescents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The Perfect Storm: A Developmental-Sociocultural Framework for the Role of Social Media in Adolescent Girls' Body Image Concerns and Mental Health

In this theoretical review paper, we provide a developmental-sociocultural framework for the role of social media (SM) in adolescent girls' body image concerns, and in turn, depressive symptoms and disordered eating. We propose that the features of SM (e.g., idealized images of peers, quantifiable feedback) intersect with adolescent developmental factors (e.g., salience of peer relationships) and sociocultural gender socialization processes (e.g., societal over-emphasis on girls' and women's physical appearance) to create the "perfect storm" for exacerbating girls' body image concerns. We argue that, ultimately, body image concerns may be a key mechanism underlying associations between adolescent girls' SM use and mental health. In the context of proposing this framework, we provide empirical evidence for how SM may increase adolescent girls' body image concerns through heightening their focus on (1) other people's physical appearance (e.g., through exposure to idealized images of peers, celebrities, and SM influencers; quantifiable indicators of approval); and (2) their own appearance (e.g., through appearance-related SM consciousness; exposure to idealized self-images; encouraging over-valuing of appearance; and peer approval of photos/videos). Our framework highlights new avenues for future research on adolescent girls' SM use and mental health, which recognize the central role of body image.

Adolescent (mis)perceptions of peer alcohol posts on social media: Prospective associations with alcohol attitudes and use

BACKGROUND

Social media is a central context in which teens interact with their peers, creating opportunities for them to view, post, and engage with alcohol content. Because adolescent peer interactions largely occur on social media, perceptions of peer alcohol content posting may act as potent risk factors for adolescent alcohol use. Accordingly, the preregistered aims of this study were to (1) compare perceived friend, typical person, and an adolescent's own posting of alcohol content to social media and (2) examine how these perceptions prospectively relate to alcohol willingness, expectancies, and use after accounting for offline perceived peer alcohol use.

METHODS

This longitudinal study included 435 adolescents (Mage  = 16.91) in 11th (48%) and 12th grade (52%). Participants completed measures of alcohol content social media posts, perceived peer alcohol use, willingness to drink alcohol, alcohol expectancies, and alcohol use at two time points, 3 months apart.

RESULTS

Consistent with preregistered hypotheses, adolescents reported that 60.3% of the typical person their age and 30.6% of their friends post alcohol content on social media. By contrast, only 7% of participants reported that they themselves posted such content to social media. After accounting for offline perceived peer drinking norms, neither perceived friend nor typical person alcohol content social media posts were prospectively associated with willingness to drink or positive or negative alcohol expectancies. Perceived friend alcohol content posts were prospectively positively associated with past 30-day alcohol consumption even after controlling for offline perceived peer drinking norms.

CONCLUSIONS

Adolescents misperceived the frequency of alcohol-related posting to social media among their peers, and perceptions of friend alcohol content posts prospectively predicted alcohol use. Given the results from the current study and the ubiquity of social media among adolescents, prevention efforts may benefit from addressing misperceptions of alcohol-related posting to social media.

#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.