Daily use of digital technologies to feel better: Adolescents' digital emotion regulation, emotions, loneliness, and recovery, considering prior emotional problems.

INTRODUCTION: Adolescents report using digital technologies for emotion regulation (digital ER), with the aim of feeling better (i.e., improving emotions and reducing loneliness). In this 7-day diary study, we investigated associations of digital ER, emotions, and loneliness, and tested whether prior emotional problems moderated these associations. METHOD: Participants were 312 Australian adolescents (Mage = 13.91, SD = 1.52; 44% boys). Daily surveys measured digital ER; end-of-day happiness, sadness, worry, anger, and loneliness; and peak sadness, worry, and anger. End-of day emotions were subtracted from peak emotions to calculate emotion recovery for sadness, worry, and anger. Participants were randomly selected from two symptom strata (high/low) defined by depression and social anxiety measures collected before the diary. Data were analyzed using multilevel path modeling. Cross-level interactions tested whether symptom strata moderated associations. RESULTS: Digital ER was associated with more recovery from peak to end-of-day sadness and worry, but also with increased sadness, worry, anger, and loneliness by the next end-of-day. Higher end-of-day loneliness was associated with increased next-day digital ER. Prior emotional symptoms were not a significant moderator of daily digital ER and emotion associations. CONCLUSION: Adolescents who report more digital ER in a day show more recovery from the peak of negative emotion that day, but this recovery dissipates, with digital ER also associated with increased negative emotion and loneliness by the next day for all adolescents, regardless of prior symptom status. Lonelier adolescents use more digital ER by the next day, suggesting they need support to make social connections-online or offline.

Reaching Young People in Urban and Rural Communities with Mental Health and Wellbeing Support Within a Youth Sports Development Program: Integrating In-Person and Remote Modes of Service Delivery.

Embedding mental health and wellbeing programs within youth sports development programs can help provide more young people with mental health support. However, delivering such programs in multiple locations across metropolitan, regional, and rural areas requires novel solutions to overcome geographic and logistical barriers. We examined the delivery of an integrated system delivered within an Australian junior rugby league program. The program included online assessment and feedback about youth mental health, as well as connection with evidence-informed resources and referral sources via parent telephone and email support. There were four methods of delivering player workshops during training sessions: (a) In-person Delivery Only, (b) In-person + Remote Real-time (video-conferenced), (c) In-person + Remote Prerecorded (video-recorded), and (d) Remote Delivery Only (video-conferenced and/or video-recorded). In-person delivered player workshops were facilitated by local rugby league personnel. Remote delivered workshops were facilitated by psychologists from the mental health research team. Participants were 671 boys (12-15 years; M age = 13.35; SD = 0.35) in 21 metropolitan, regional and rural locations. Regardless of delivery condition, players with elevated anxiety, depression and behavioural problems reported significant declines in symptoms from pre- to post-program, and those within healthy ranges did not change from pre- to post-program. Player workshop enjoyment ratings were higher in the In-person + Remote Real-time condition and the Remote Delivery Only condition than the In-person Delivery Only condition. However, non-completion of the post-program assessment across all conditions was higher than in prior studies and a comparison group of players who did not complete the program was not included. Mental health benefits may be observed across in-person and remote modes of delivering mental health workshops within youth sports programs. However, the involvement of mental health personnel, whether in-person or remotely, and mixed delivery modes, may be important for young people's retention and satisfaction.

Fear learning and extinction predicts anxiety in daily life: a study of Pavlovian conditioning and ecological momentary assessment.

BACKGROUND: The association between anxious mood and aberrant fear learning mechanisms has not been fully elucidated. Studying how fear conditioning and extinction constructs relate to anxiety symptoms and reactivity to stressful and benign moments in everyday life provides a powerful addition to experimental paradigms. METHOD: Fifty-one young adults completed laboratory-based differential conditioning and extinction tasks with (CS + ) and without (CS-) an aversive unconditional stimulus (US). Electrodermal skin conductance responses were measured during each phase, followed by ecological momentary assessment (EMA) tapping anxiety and stressors six times daily for seven days (2, 142 moments). RESULTS: Conditioned electrodermal reactivity to the CS + and overgeneralisation to the CS- were associated with greater change in anxiety (measured via EMA), across non-stressful situations, remaining the same across stressful situations. Likewise, during extinction when the CS + is now safe, more electrodermal reactivity to the CS + was associated with more anxiety change across non-stressful situations and remained the same across stressful situations. Also, during extinction when threat is absent, more electrodermal reactivity at the late stage of the CS- was associated with less momentary anxiety change in response to stressful situations; more electrodermal activity at the late stage of the CS + was associated with more anxiety change across non-stressful situations and remained the same across stressful situations. CONCLUSIONS: Sampling 'in vivo' emotion and stress experiences, study findings revealed links between conditioned electrodermal reactivity and overgeneralisation to safe stimuli and heightened anxious reactivity during non-stressful (i.e. safe) moments in daily life, coupled with less change in response to actual stressors.

Does irritability predict attention biases toward threat among clinically anxious youth?

Aberrant threat processing is a known cognitive characteristic of anxiety disorders and irritability. Youth with more severe symptomatology show greater allocation of attention towards threat relative to neutral stimuli. Although irritability contributes to poorer outcomes among anxious youths, irritability has not been considered as a contributing factor to threat processing in anxiety disorders. Thus, the current study examined the role of irritability in predicting attention biases for threat among clinically anxious youth. Our study included 84 clinically anxious youth (M = 9.31 years old, SD = 2.44) who completed a dot-probe task to determine attention biases. Anxiety disorders were assessed using semi-structured diagnostic interviews. Well validated measures were used to assess the severity of anxiety and irritability symptoms via child- and parent-report, respectively. Findings indicated that more severe irritability predicted greater attention biases toward threat among clinically anxious youth, covarying for age, anxiety severity, and the number of comorbid diagnoses. At a trend-level, anxiety severity also predicted attention bias for threat. Among clinically anxious youth, irritability severity was the strongest predictor of attention bias toward threat. Findings point to the salience of irritability, and to some extent anxiety severity, in relation to threat processing among youth with clinical anxiety disorders.

Using Nightly Sleep Guidelines to Address Links Between Adolescents' Self-Reported Weekly Sleep Patterns and Anxiety and Depression Symptoms.

Short and long nightly sleep durations are associated with anxiety and depression symptoms among adolescents. However, studies have not used recommended hours of nightly sleep or focused on sleep patterns across weekdays and weekends in examining links with anxiety and depression symptoms. The present study included 709 adolescents in Grade 11 (402 females; 307 males) who self-reported hours of sleep on weeknights and weekends and anxiety and depression symptoms. Using the recommended 8-10 h to define average nightly sleep for adolescents, sleep patterns across weekdays and weekends were categorised into seven classes: short stable, short increasing, average decreasing, average stable, average increasing, long decreasing, and long stable. Relative to average stable sleepers, short stable, short increasing, and long stable sleepers had significantly higher anxiety and depression. Adolescents require 8-10 h of sleep on weeknights, regardless of weekends, for optimal emotional wellbeing.

Examining the Process of Implementing a Three-Step Mental Health and Wellbeing System of Care for Children and Adolescents Across Multiple Community Settings.

Mental health problems affect large numbers of young people. Integrated systems are required that can be applied in diverse settings to reach youth 'where they are'. We evaluated the process of implementing a three-step youth mental health and wellbeing system in diverse community settings according to three implementation outcomes: feasibility, penetration and acceptability. The study describes 49 applications of the 'Life-Fit-Learning system' designed to assess the mental health and wellbeing of youth (Assess step), provide feedback on assessment results (Reflect step), and connect them to resources and services proportionate to their needs (Connect step). Within a participatory research approach, 3798 administrations were conducted with youth between 9 and 18 years and 90 administrations were conducted with adults. Implementation was based on the four phases of the Quality Implementation Framework and was staged to integrate stakeholder and consumer feedback and experience gained from focus groups and two pilot phases before full implementation. Feasibility ratings of successful implementation ranged from 86.7 to 96.4% across applications and settings. High penetration rates were achieved. The Life-Fit-Learning system successfully reached 91.9% to 96% of youth with the Assess and Reflect steps and low intensity Connect step resources. Of those, 14.7% to 23% were identified at-risk for mental health problems and 93% to 97% of those at-risk youth additionally received Connect step co-delivered group-based programs (moderate intensity care) and/or individual treatment (high intensity care). Youth and parents reported high satisfaction across all steps and delivery modes. With strong collaboration, an integrated model of care can be delivered feasibly, effectively and satisfactorily to reach large numbers of young people across settings.

Commentary response: Smartphone use and parenting: re-stratifying the multiverse for families of young children.

Concerns have been raised that smartphones may harm children and families. Arguably, risk-driven discourses are not always evidence-based. This is a problem, because blanket assumptions of risk drowns out nuanced empirical questions of what constitutes "good" parenting when it comes to smartphone use, and for whom. Here we outline three logical missteps which have contributed to the deficit zeitgeist-ignoring context, misinterpreting effect, and conflation. Further, we speak to questions about parents of young children, by refocusing our multiverse analysis on 800+ parents. We ask- where are the links between parental phone use and parenting? Are these robust versus frail or positive versus negative? After re-examining our 84 analytic choices (adopting existing measures), patterns revealed fragility in this case. The few findings that did emerge implicated technoference, not smartphone use, in relation to negative parenting. We encourage continued rigorous and scientific dialogue, to accrue good evidence for families and children.

Tackling Mental Health in Youth Sporting Programs: A Pilot Study of a Holistic Program.

Linking mental health services to organised sport offers an avenue to identify and improve mental health among adolescents. In this study, we investigated the efficacy, acceptability and feasibility of an integrated mental health system embedded within a junior sports development program. A three-step integrated mental health program for 12- to 15-year-old rugby league players (N = 74) was delivered in urban (n = 44) and rural (n = 33) areas. Specifically, this system (a) assessed participant mental health on primary outcome measures of anxiety, depression, and anger/conduct problems (and secondary outcome measures of personal attributes and relationships), (b) provided feedback to participants, parents and program coordinators, and (c) connected participants and parents to a multi-component intervention including online resources, a group-based workshop program (4 × 30-min sessions), and tailored individual-level follow-up and referral to further care for participants at high risk of mental health problems. From pre- to post-program, boys' anxiety symptoms declined significantly (with only a trend-level reduction in depression), and there were significant improvements in grit (for urban boys only), efficacy to manage negative emotions, and prosocial behaviour. In addition, when boys reported symptoms associated with high risk for mental health problems, providing parents with feedback enhanced boys' access to care and was associated with significant declines in anxiety symptoms. The program was generally acceptable and feasible, with very high retention in the youth sports development program. Overall, early findings support further deployment and evaluation of integrated mental health systems embedded within sporting contexts to address mental health problems among adolescent boys.

Tuning into the real effect of smartphone use on parenting: a multiverse analysis.

BACKGROUND: Concerns have been raised regarding the potential negative impacts of parents' smartphone use on the parent-child relationship. A scoping literature review indicated inconsistent effects, arguably attributable to different conceptualizations of parent phone use and conflation of phone use with technological interference. METHODS: Based on a sample of n = 3, 659 parents collected in partnership with a national public broadcaster, we conducted a multiverse analysis. We explored 84 different analytic choices to address whether associations were weak versus robust, and provide clearer direction for measurement, theory, and practice. Effects were assessed in relation to p values, effect sizes, and AIC; we further conducted a meta-analytic sensitivity check. RESULTS: Direct associations between smartphone use and parenting were relatively weak and mixed. Instead, the relation between use and parenting depended on level of technological interference. This pattern was particularly robust for family displacement. At low levels of displacing time with family using technology, more smartphone use was associated with better (not worse) parenting. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate fragility in findings of risks for parental smartphone use on parenting; there were few concerns in this regard. Rather, at low levels of technological interference, more phone use was associated with higher parenting quality. Scholars should avoid generalized narratives of family risk and seek to uncover real effects of smartphone use on family outcomes across diverse households and contexts.

Ambulatory Assessment of Adolescent Coping: It's a Complicated Process.

Scholars have long-called for researchers to treat coping as a process that is measured over an arc of time. Ambulatory assessment (AA) offers an appealing tool for capturing the dynamic process of adolescent coping. However, challenges in capturing the coping process are not altogether circumvented with AA designs. We conducted a scoping review of the AA literature on adolescent coping and draw from 60 studies to provide an overview of the field. We provide critiques of different AA approaches and highlight benefits and costs associated with various types of measurement within AA. We also speak to considerations of participant burden and compliance. We conclude with recommendations for developmental scholars seeking to deploy AA to capture this quintessential process among adolescents.

Mobile Phones in the Bedroom: Trajectories of Sleep Habits and Subsequent Adolescent Psychosocial Development.

Mobile phones are an essential part of an adolescent's life, leading them to text, phone, or message into the night. Longitudinal latent growth models were used to examine relations between changes in adolescent night-time mobile phone use, changes in sleep behavior, and changes in well-being (depressed mood, externalizing behavior, self-esteem, and coping) for 1,101 students (43% male) between 13 and 16 years old. Both night-time mobile phone use and poor sleep behavior underwent positive linear growth over time. Increased night-time mobile phone use was directly associated with increased externalizing behavior and decreased self-esteem and coping. Changes in sleep behavior mediated the relation between early changes in night-time mobile phone use and later increases in depressed mood and externalizing behavior and later declines in self-esteem and coping.

Emotion Regulation, Coping, and Decision Making: Three Linked Skills for Preventing Externalizing Problems in Adolescence.

Research on executive control during the teenage years points to shortfalls in emotion regulation, coping, and decision making as three linked capabilities associated with youth's externalizing behavior problems. Evidence gleaned from a detailed review of the literature makes clear that improvement of all three capabilities is critical to help young people better navigate challenges and prevent or reduce externalizing and related problems. Moreover, interventions can successfully improve these three capabilities and have been found to produce behavioral improvements with real-world significance. Examples of how successful interventions remediate more than one of these capabilities are provided. Future directions in research and practice are also proposed to move the field toward the development of more comprehensive programs for adolescents to foster their integration.

Tracking Effects of Problematic Social Networking on Adolescent Psychopathology: The Mediating Role of Sleep Disruptions.

Concerns are growing about adolescents' problematic social networking and possible links to depressed mood and externalizing behavior. Yet there remains little understanding of underlying processes that may account for these associations, including the mediating role of sleep disruption. This study tests this putative mediating process and examines change in problematic social networking investment and disrupted sleep, in relation to change in depressed mood and externalizing behavior. A sample of 874 students (41% male; 57.2% Caucasian; baseline M age = 14.4 years) from 27 high schools were surveyed. Participants' problematic social networking, sleep disruption, and psychopathology (depressed mood, externalizing behaviors) were measured annually over 3 years. Longitudinal mediation was tested using latent trajectories of problematic social networking use, sleep disruption, and psychopathology. Both problematic social networking and sleep disruption underwent positive linear growth over time. Adolescents who increasingly invested in social networking reported increased depressed mood, with around 53% of this association explained by the indirect effect of increased sleep disruptions. Further, adolescents who increasingly invested in social networking also reported increased externalizing behavior; some of this relation was explained (13%) via increased sleep disruptions. However an alternative model in which increased externalizing was associated with increased social networking, mediated by sleep disruptions, indicated a reciprocal relation of similar magnitude. It is important for parents, teachers, and psychologists to minimize the negative effects of social networking on adolescents' psychopathology. Interventions should potentially target promoting healthy sleep habits through reductions in social networking investment and rescheduling usage away from bedtime.

Participation in Organized Activities Protects Against Adolescents' Risky Substance Use, Even Beyond Development in Conscientiousness.

Adolescents are at a significant risk for binge drinking and illicit drug use. One way to protect against these behaviors is through participation in extracurricular activities. However, there is a debate about whether highly conscientious adolescents are more likely to participate in activities, which raises the concern of a confound. To disentangle these relationships, we tested the latent trajectories of substance use and personality across 3 years, with participation in activities and sports as time-varying predictors. We surveyed 687 adolescents (55 % female, 85.4 % Caucasian) in Western Australia schools across 3 years. At Time 1, the students were in Year 10 1 (mean age 15 years). The results showed that participation in activities and conscientiousness are related, but each uniquely predicts slower growth in substance use. Across waves, participation in activities predicted less risky substance use a year later, over and above conscientiousness development. These results suggest that there may be unique benefits of participation in activities that protect against risky substance use.

Mexican-Origin Youth Participation in Extracurricular Activities: Predicting Trajectories of Involvement from 7th to 12th Grade.

The potential benefits of participation in extracurricular activities may be especially important for youth who are at risk for academic underachievement, such as low income Mexican-origin youth in the U.S. To advance understanding of factors that drive participation for this population, this study examined Mexican-origin youth's trajectories of participation in extracurricular activities across Grades 7-12 and tested theoretically-derived predictors of these trajectories. Participants were 178 adolescents (53.9 % Female, Mage = 12.28) and their mothers who separately completed in-home interviews. Youth reported the frequency of their participation across a range of extracurricular activities. Latent growth curve models of overall extracurricular activities participation, sports participation, and fine arts participation were individually estimated via structural equation modeling. The findings demonstrated developmental declines in overall participation and in sports participation. For fine arts, declines in participation in middle school were followed by subsequent increases during high school (a curvilinear pattern). Motivationally-salient predictors of participation trajectories included youth's traditional cultural values orientation (sports), the mothers' educational aspirations for the youth (sports, fine arts, overall activity), and youth gender (sports, fine arts). Overall, the results suggest variability in participation trajectories based on program type, and highlight the need for additional research to enhance our understanding of the impact of culturally-relevant predictors on participation over time.

An Expanded Conceptual Framework for Understanding Irritability in Childhood: The Role of Cognitive Control Processes.

Children prone to irritability experience significant functional impairments and internalising and externalising problems. Contemporary models have sought to elucidate the underlying mechanisms in irritability, such as aberrant threat and reward biases to improve interventions. However, the cognitive control processes that underlie threat (e.g., attention towards threats) and reward (e.g., attention towards reward-related cues) biases and the factors which influence the differential activation of positive and negative valence systems and thus leading to maladaptive activation of cognitive control processes (i.e., proactive and reactive control) are unclear. Thus, we aim to integrate extant theoretical and empirical research to elucidate the cognitive control processes underlying threat and reward processing that contribute to irritability in middle childhood and provide a guiding framework for future research and treatment. We propose an expanded conceptual framework of irritability that includes broad intraindividual and environmental vulnerability factors and propose proximal 'setting' factors that activate the negative valence and positive valence systems and proactive and reactive cognitive control processes which underpin the expression and progression of irritability. We consider the implications of this expanded conceptualisation of irritability and provide suggestions for future research.

Mapping developmental precursors of cyber-aggression: trajectories of risk predict perpetration and victimization.

Technologically mediated contexts are social arenas in which adolescents can be both perpetrators and victims of aggression. Yet, there remains little understanding of the developmental etiology of cyber aggression, itself, as experienced by either perpetrators or victims. The current study examines 3-year latent within-person trajectories of known correlates of cyber-aggression: problem behavior, (low) self-esteem, and depressed mood, in a large and diverse sample of youth (N = 1,364; 54.6% female; 12-14 years old at T1). Findings demonstrate that developmental increases in problem behavior across grades 8-10 predict both cyber-perpetration and victimization in grade 11. Developmental decreases in self-esteem also predicted both grade 11 perpetration and victimization. Finally, early depressed mood predicted both perpetration and victimization later on, regardless of developmental change in depressed mood in the interim. Our results reveal a clear link between risky developmental trajectories across the early high school years and later cyber-aggression and imply that mitigating trajectories of risk early on may lead to decreases in cyber-aggression at a later date.

Reciprocal relations between past behavior, implicit beliefs, and habits: A cross-lagged panel design.

The current study assessed cross-lagged relationships between binge drinking, implicit beliefs, and habit in undergraduate university students (N = 105). Students completed self-report survey and implicit measures in lab visits 3 months apart. A structural equation model revealed cross-lagged relations between habit and behavior, and some evidence for a reciprocal relationship between implicit beliefs and habit. Implicit beliefs were related to alcohol behavior across time, but no cross-lagged relationship was observed. Findings provide preliminary support for recent advances in habit theory, suggesting that implicit beliefs and habit may develop in tandem or even share common knowledge structures and schemas.

What Is Digital Parenting? A Systematic Review of Past Measurement and Blueprint for the Future.

Concerns about parenting adolescents are not new, but the rapid diffusion of digital technologies has heightened anxieties over digital parenting. Findings are decidedly mixed regarding the impact of digital technologies on adolescent well-being, and parents are left to navigate their concerns without an empirically based road map. A missing link for understanding the state of the science is a clear characterization of how digital parenting is measured, including an evaluation of which areas demand an outsized share of scientific attention and which have been overlooked. To address this gap, we undertook two interdisciplinary systematic reviews of the digital-parenting literature and characterized measurement across (a) quantitative surveys (n = 145 studies) and (b) qualitative focus groups, interviews, codesign studies, and user studies (n = 49). We describe previously popular areas of survey measurement that are of decreasing relevance to parenting of digital spaces (e.g., co-use, hovering). We likewise highlight areas that have been overlooked, including consideration of positive uses of digital technologies, acknowledgment of bidirectional influence, and attention to heterogeneity among families and to extraparental social ecologies of support and monitoring. We provide recommendations for the future of digital-parenting research and propose a more comprehensive approach to measuring how modern adolescents are parented.

Kick-starting youth wellbeing and access to mental health care: Efficacy of an integrated model of care within a junior sports development program.

One productive avenue for building adolescents' personal strengths and reducing mental health problems is integrating assessment and intervention into organised sports programs. We investigated the efficacy of the RISE program, a rugby league development program for 12- to 15-year-old boys, which integrated a mental health and wellbeing system called Life-Fit-Learning. The Life-Fit System is designed to measure youth's strengths and mental health symptoms and sends mental health feedback to parents, provides group-based workshops, connects youth and parents to online psychoeducation resources, and provides individual telephone follow-up and referral with parents of youth at high-risk for mental health problems. In this study, mental health and wellbeing outcomes were compared in participants who did (RISE, N = 94) and did not (Comparison, N = 82) receive the RISE/Life-Fit-Learning program. RISE players reported their self-satisfaction, grit, gratitude, prosocial behaviour, anxiety, depression, and behavioural problems using the Life-Fit System pre- and post-program. Comparison participants completed measures twice, 6-months apart. Self-satisfaction did not change in RISE participants but declined among comparison participants. In both groups, 26% of players scored in the high-risk range on at least one mental health measure. On mental health measures, high-risk RISE players' depression and behavioural problems improved from pre-to post-program relative to no change among Comparison players. Among participants who were not high-risk, RISE players' anxiety, depression, and behavioural problems did not change whereas Comparison players' behavioural problems increased significantly. Results underscore the value of integrating strengths-based interventions and targeting youth mental health problems within the context of junior sports development programs.