Category: Technology
Simone Boyd, M.A.
Rutgers University
Somerset, New Jersey
Jessica Hamilton, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Rutgers
Piscataway, New Jersey
Simone Boyd, M.A.
Rutgers University
Somerset, New Jersey
Kara Fox, PhD
Graduate Student
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Melissa Dreier, PhD
Graduate student
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, New Jersey
Kiera James, Ph.D.
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Adolescence is a critical developmental period of risk and opportunity. It is marked by increased salience of peer relationships, identity exploration and commitment, changes in reward responsivity, heightened affective reactivity, and autonomy from one’s family of origin or caregivers (Erikson, 1950; Schriber & Guyer, 2016), as well as first onset of most mental health problems (Kessler, Amminger, Aguilar-Gaxiola, Alonso, Lee, & Ustun, 2007).
Social Media (SM) is a novel and now ubiquitous method of social connection and communication for adolescents that is inextricably linked with adolescent development, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic (Hamilton, Nesi, & Choukas-Bradley, 2021). Indeed, approximately 40% of adolescents report being on SM “almost constantly,” a statistic that has increased with pandemic-related school closures and quarantine orders restricting offline interactions. Traditionally, research examining the relationship between SM use and mental health outcomes has focused only on the frequency of SM use or used self-report methods to assess use, yielding mixed results in these associations (Odgers & Jensen, 2020). Yet, SM provides functional affordances (Moreno & Uhls, 2019) that map on to developmental tasks that are relevant to adolescent development, providing a space for teens to interact with their peers, explore their identities, regulate their emotions, and access information and resources. Thus, examining how adolescent development informs SM use will provide clarity in the relationship between SM use and mental health problems.
The first presenter will describe the association between adolescents’ perceived importance of functional affordances of SM and depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation in a large nationally representative sample of adolescents. The second presenter will prospectively examine the nuanced associations between adolescents’ social relationships, digital stress, and depression. The third presenter will examine how reward responsiveness drives SM use through positive affect and negative affect using objective measures of SM use through passive smartphone monitoring. The fourth presenter will discuss the association between social media use, peer connectedness, and positive and negative affect in adolescents during the COVID-19 state-issued stay-at-home orders. Finally, the discussant will synthesize findings from the presented studies and present future directions in understanding developmental processes and social media use, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This symposium will present the ways in which adolescents use and engage with SM that reflect tasks that are salient during this developmental period, and explore the relationship between these patterns of social media use and mental health outcomes. The symposium will review theoretical and practical implications for understanding these patterns of SM us, including how to empower teens and stakeholders in teen mental health to use SM in adaptive ways, and how these associations may be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and national/international contexts.
Presenter: Simone I. Boyd, M.A. – Rutgers University
Co-author: Saskia L. Jorgensen, PhD – Rutgers University
Co-author: Adia Moore – Rutgers University
Co-author: Alea Watson – Rutgers University
Co-author: Jessica L. Hamilton, Ph.D. – Rutgers
Presenter: Kara A. Fox, PhD – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Co-author: Elizabeth Nick, PhD – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Co-author: Mitchell J Prinstein, PhD, ABPP – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Presenter: Melissa J. Dreier, PhD – Rutgers University
Co-author: Saskia L. Jorgensen, PhD – Rutgers University
Co-author: Ella Diab, None – Notre Dame University
Co-author: Sarah Bregna, None – Rutgers University
Co-author: Jessica L. Hamilton, Ph.D. – Rutgers
Presenter: Kiera M. James, Ph.D. – University of Pittsburgh
Co-author: Jennifer Silk, Ph.D. – University of Pittsburgh, Department of Psychology
Co-author: Lori Scott, PhD – University of Pittsburgh
Co-author: Emily Hutchinson, B.S. – University of Pittsburgh
Co-author: Sarah Wang, B.S. – University of Pittsburgh
Co-author: Stefanie Sequeira, PhD – University of Pittsburgh
Co-author: Celine Lu, PhD – University of Pittsburgh
Co-author: Caroline Oppenheimer, PhD – University of Pittsburgh
Co-author: Cecile Ladouceur, Ph.D. – University of Pittsburgh, Department Of Psychiatry