Social Media-Driven Routes to Positive Mental Health Among Youth: Qualitative Enquiry and Concept Mapping Study

The Need to Adapt the Psychiatric Clinical Assessment to the Digital Age: A Practical Approach

The use of electronic devices and social media is becoming a ubiquitous part of most people's lives. Although researchers are exploring the sequelae of such use, little attention has been given to the importance of digital media use in routine psychiatric assessments of patients. The nature of technology use is relevant to understanding a patient's lifestyle and activities, the same way that it is important to evaluate the patient's occupation, functioning, and general activities. The authors propose a framework for psychiatric inquiry into digital media use, emphasizing that such inquiry should focus on quality of use, including emotional and behavioral consequences, rather than simply the amount of use.

Exploring the Impact of Social Media on Anxiety Among University Students in the United Kingdom: Qualitative Study

BACKGROUND

The rapid surge in social media platforms has significant implications for users' mental health, particularly anxiety. In the case of social media, the impact on mental well-being has been highlighted by multiple stakeholders as a cause for concern. However, there has been limited research into how the association between social media and anxiety arises, specifically among university students-the generation that has seen the introduction and evolution of social media, and currently lives through the medium. Extant systematic literature reviews within this area of research have not yet focused on university students or anxiety, rather predominantly investigating adolescents or generalized mental health symptoms and disorders. Furthermore, there is little to no qualitative data exploring the association between social media and anxiety among university students.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic literature review of the existing literature and a qualitative study that aims to develop foundational knowledge around the association of social media and anxiety among university students and enhance extant knowledge and theory.

METHODS

A total of 29 semistructured interviews were conducted, comprising 19 male students (65.5%) and 10 female students (34.5%) with a mean age of 21.5 years. All students were undergraduates from 6 universities across the United Kingdom, with most students studying in London (89.7%). Participants were enrolled through a homogenous purposive sampling technique via social media channels, word of mouth, and university faculties. Recruitment was suspended at the point of data saturation. Participants were eligible for the study if they were university students in the United Kingdom and users of social media.

RESULTS

Thematic analysis resulted in 8 second-order themes: 3 mediating factors that decrease anxiety levels and 5 factors that increase anxiety levels. Social media decreased anxiety through positive experiences, social connectivity, and escapism. Social media increased anxiety through stress, comparison, fear of missing out, negative experiences, and procrastination.

CONCLUSIONS

This qualitative study sheds critical light on how university students perceive how social media affects their anxiety levels. Students revealed that social media did impact their anxiety levels and considered it an important factor in their mental health. Thus, it is essential to educate stakeholders, including students, university counselors, and health care professionals, about the potential impact of social media on students' anxiety levels. Since anxiety is a multifactorial condition, pinpointing the main stressors in a person's life, such as social media use, may help manage these patients more effectively. The current research highlights that there are also many benefits to social media, and uncovering these may help in producing more holistic management plans for anxiety, reflective of the students' social media usage.

Mental Health Practitioners' and Young People's Experiences of Talking About Social Media During Mental Health Consultations: Qualitative Focus Group and Interview Study

BACKGROUND

Increasing concerns among mental health care professionals have focused on the impact of young people's use of digital technology and social media on their mental well-being. It has been recommended that the use of digital technology and social media be routinely explored during mental health clinical consultations with young people. Whether these conversations occur and how they are experienced by both clinicians and young people are currently unknown.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to explore mental health practitioners' and young people's experiences of talking about young people's web-based activities related to their mental health during clinical consultations. Web-based activities include use of social media, websites, and messaging. Our aim was to identify barriers to effective communication and examples of good practice. In particular, we wanted to obtain the views of young people, who are underrepresented in studies, on their social media and digital technology use related to mental health.

METHODS

A qualitative study was conducted using focus groups (11 participants across 3 groups) with young people aged 16 to 24 years and interviews (n=8) and focus groups (7 participants across 2 groups) with mental health practitioners in the United Kingdom. Young people had experience of mental health problems and support provided by statutory mental health services or third-sector organizations. Practitioners worked in children and young people's mental health services, statutory services, or third-sector organizations such as a university counseling service. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data.

RESULTS

Practitioners and young people agreed that talking about young people's web-based activities and their impact on mental health is important. Mental health practitioners varied in their confidence in doing this and were keen to have more guidance. Young people said that practitioners seldom asked about their web-based activities, but when asked, they often felt judged or misunderstood. This stopped them from disclosing difficult web-based experiences and precluded useful conversations about web-based safety and how to access appropriate web-based support. Young people supported the idea of guidance or training for practitioners and were enthusiastic about sharing their experiences and being involved in the training or guidance provided to practitioners.

CONCLUSIONS

Practitioners would benefit from structured guidance and professional development to enable them to support young people in feeling more willing to disclose and talk about their web-based experiences and their impact on their mental health. This is reflected in practitioners' desire for guidance to improve their confidence and skills to safely support young people in navigating the challenges of the web-based world. Young people want to feel comfortable discussing their web-based activities during their consultations with mental health practitioners, both in tackling the challenges and using the opportunity to discuss their experiences, gain support, and develop coping strategies related to web-based safety.

A qualitative study on negative experiences of social media use and harm reduction strategies among youths in a multi-ethnic Asian society

PURPOSE

This study aimed to expand and inform the emerging body of research on the negative experiences of social media use among youths and how youths deal with them, in an Asian setting, using a qualitative approach.

METHODS

Data were collected using 11 focus group discussions (FGDs) and 25 semi-structured interviews (SIs) among youths aged 15 to 24 years residing in Singapore who were recruited via purposive sampling. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.

RESULTS

The salient negative effects mentioned by participants include the development of negative reactions and feelings from upward comparisons with others (e.g., others' achievements and lifestyle), receiving hurtful comments, exposure to controversial content (e.g., political events and social movements), as well as the perpetuation of negative feelings, behaviours, and sentiments (e.g., rumination, unhealthy eating behaviour, and self-harm). Participants also described strategies which they have employed or deemed to be useful in mitigating the negative effects of social media use. These include filtering content and users, taking breaks from social media, cognitive reframing, and self-affirmation, where they identify and change stress-inducing patterns of thinking by setting realistic social, physical, and lifestyle expectations for themselves, and focusing on self-development.

CONCLUSION

The current results highlight that while youths experience negative effects of social media use, they have high media literacy and have employed strategies that appear to mitigate the negative effects of social media use. The findings can inform various stakeholders involved in helping youths navigate the harms of social media use or provide directions for intervention studies aimed at reducing the harms of social media use.

A study on the impact and buffer path of the internet use gap on population health: Latent category analysis and mediating effect analysis

Background

The development of Internet information technology will generate an Internet use gap, which will have certain adverse effects on health, but internet information dependence can alleviate these negative effects.

Objective

This article is to demonstrate the negative impact of the internet use gap on population health in developing countries and to propose improvement paths.

Methods

This article used the 2018 China Family Tracking Survey database (N = 11086). The research first used Latent class analysis (LCA) to identify potential categories of users with different Internet usage situations, then used the Bolck, Croon, and Hagenaars (BCH) method to perform latent class modeling with a continuous distal outcome, and finally built an intermediary model about Internet information dependence based on the model constraint function in Mplus software.

Results

(1) The Internet users can be divided into light-life users (C1: N = 1,061, 9.57%), all-around users (N = 1,980, 17.86%(C2: N = 1,980, 17.86%), functional users (C3: N = 1,239, 11.18%), and pure-life users (C4: N = 6,806, 61.39%). (2) We examined individual characteristics, social characteristics and different living habits, and health differences between the latent classes. For example, there are certain structural differences on the effect of different categories of Internet use on health (C1: M = 3.089, SE = 0.040; C2: M = 3.151, SE = 0.037; C3: M = 3.070, SE = 0.035; C4: M = 2.948, SE = 0.016; P < 0.001). (3) The Internet use gap can affect health through the indirect path of Internet information dependence, and some of the mediation effects are significant. When the functional user group (C3) was taken as the reference group, the mediating effect values of light-life users (C1) and all-around users (C4) on health were -0.050 (SE = 0.18, Est./SE = -3.264, P = 0.001) and -0.080 (SE = 0.010, Est./SE = -8.412, P = 0.000) through Internet information dependence, respectively. However, the effect of categories on health was not significant after adding indirect paths.

Conclusion

The Internet use gap has a significant effect on health, and Internet information dependence plays an intermediary role in this effect path. The study proposes that attention should be paid to the diversified development of Internet use, the positive guiding function of Internet information channels should be made good use of, and the countermeasures and suggestions of marginalized groups in the digital age should also be paid attention to and protected.