Pathways to Depressive Symptoms in a Digital Environment: The Role of Trait Affectivity and Mediation of Media Response Styles in Adolescence.

Trait negative affectivity and trait extraversion/positive affectivity are predictive of both responses to affect and depressive symptoms in adolescence. Furthermore, differences in the use of responses to affect are associated with different levels of depressive symptoms. Despite the central role of media content in adolescents' daily lives, responses to affect have not yet been extended to affect in this media content. It is thus unclear whether trait affectivity is predictive of responses to affective media content, and whether such media response styles are predictive of depressive symptoms. A 3-wave longitudinal panel study with 3-month intervals among 318 adolescents (Mage = 16.5 years, SDage = 1.11, 72.5% boys) investigated the mediating role of media response styles in associations between trait affectivity and depressive symptoms. Trait negative affectivity predicted media rumination and media dampening, yet only media rumination predicted greater levels of depressive symptoms over time. Trait positive affectivity was associated with concurrent media distraction and media-enhancing. The media response styles did not mediate the associations between trait affectivity and depressive symptoms over time. These findings suggest that individuals higher in trait negative affectivity tend to engage in maladaptive emotion regulation strategies during sad media content consumption, whereas adolescents higher in trait positive affectivity turn to more adaptive strategies during sad or happy media content consumption. Yet, media response styles are not robustly associated with depressive symptoms over time.

Television, news media, social media and adolescents' and young adults' violations of the COVID-19 lockdown measures: A prototype willingness model.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, television and social media informed and entertained people. This cross-sectional study among adolescents and young adults (n = 859, 71.94% female, Mage  = 20.55, SDage  = 4.59) examined the associations between pro- and anti-governmental (social) media and youth's violations of the lockdown measures following the prototype willingness model (PWM). Data were collected during Belgium's first and strictest lockdown. The results largely confirmed the applicability of the PWM in a public health context. Posting of and exposure to anti-governmental social media messages positively related to violations of the regulations via higher descriptive norm perceptions of peers violating the measures and positive attitudes towards violations. Pro-governmental media interactions (i.e., exposure to news media and pro-governmental social media messages) negatively related to violations via negative attitudes towards violations. No support emerged for the role of (televised) series, prototype favorability, or subjective norms in the PWM. Differences in posting versus exposure of social media messages were found. Posting generally related stronger to risk cognitions and behaviors compared to exposure. Gender and age moderated some of the examined relations in the PWM. Implications for media research and health campaigns are discussed.