Explaining variation in adolescents' social media-related distraction: The role of social connectivity and disconnectivity factors.

Social media are often believed to distract adolescents' attention. While existing research has shown that some adolescents experience more social media-related distraction than others, the explanations for these differences remain largely unknown. Based on Self-Determination Theory, this preregistered study investigated two social connectivity factors (fear of missing out [FoMO] and friendship accessibility expectations) and two disconnectivity factors (self-control strategies and parental restrictions) that may explain heterogeneity in social media-related distraction. We used data collected through a measurement burst design, consisting of a three-week experience sampling method study among 300 adolescents (21,970 assessments) and online surveys. Using N = 1 analyses, we found that most adolescents (77%) experienced social media-related distraction. Contrary to expectations, none of the connectivity or disconnectivity factors explained differences in social media-related distraction. The findings indicate that social media are a powerful distractor many adolescents seem to struggle with.

Just a Joke? Adolescents' Preferences for Humor in Media Entertainment and Real-Life Aggression.

Humorous media entertainment frequently punctuates the everyday lives of adolescents. Theorists have suggested that this exposure may impact behavior, particularly real-life aggression. Specifically, exposure to prosocial (coping) humor in media entertainment is posited to decrease aggression, whereas the reverse has been argued for exposure to antisocial (disparaging and slapstick) humor. Despite these suppositions, little empirical evidence about this relationship exists. To fill this gap, this study employed a cohort-sequential design using latent growth curve models to estimate the (co-)development of adolescents' preferences for television shows featuring disparaging, slapstick, and coping humor and aggression from age 10 to 17. Results showed that at the onset of adolescence, especially boys had a higher preference for shows with disparaging and slapstick humor than with coping humor. However, over the course of adolescence, boys' and girls' preferences for shows with coping humor increased, while especially girls' preferences for shows with disparaging and slapstick humor decreased. These preferences were unrelated to adolescents' aggression. Our findings provide an important addition to the ongoing media effects debate. Taken together, they offer room for optimism and point toward an increased focus on the potential positive rather than the negative sides of humor in the lives of young people.

Who benefits most from using social media, the socially rich or the socially poor?

Research has shown that some individuals benefit from using social media because it may help them to obtain social capital. This article questions who are most likely to benefit: the socially rich (i.e., individuals with a preference for social interaction, support, or without interpersonal problems) or the socially poor? It is hard to provide a definite answer to this question: Previous empirical studies have yielded mixed findings and were difficult to compare due to varying conceptualizations and analytic approaches. To better understand the complex interplay between individuals' social media use and social capital, we discuss the added value of within-person analyses and person-specific designs.

Experience sampling self-reports of social media use have comparable predictive validity to digital trace measures.

Research agrees that self-reported measures of time spent with social media (TSM) show poor convergent validity, because they correlate modestly with equivalent objective digital trace measures. This experience sampling study among 159 adolescents (12,617 self-reports) extends this work by examining the comparative predictive validity of self-reported and digital trace measures of TSM, that is, the extent to which self-reported and digital trace measures of TSM correspond in their effects on self-esteem, well-being, and friendship closeness. Using an N = 1 method of analysis, we investigated the correspondence on a between-person, within-person, and person-specific level. Although our results confirmed the poor convergent validity of self-reported TSM reported earlier, we found that self-reports of TSM had comparable predictive validity to digital trace measures on all three levels. Because comparative predictive validity of self-reported TSM is crucial for investigating social media effects, our results have important implications for future research using self-reported TSM.

Some socially poor but also some socially rich adolescents feel closer to their friends after using social media.

Who benefits most from using social media is an important societal question that is centered around two opposing hypotheses: the rich-get-richer versus the poor-get-richer hypothesis. This study investigated the assumption that both hypotheses may be true, but only for some socially rich and some socially poor adolescents and across different time intervals. We employed a state-of-the-art measurement burst design, consisting of a three-week experience sampling study and seven biweekly follow-up surveys. Person-specific analyses of more than 70,000 observations from 383 adolescents revealed that 12% of the socially rich adolescents (high in friendship support or low in loneliness) felt closer to their friends after using social media, as opposed to about 25% of the socially poor adolescents (low in friendship support or high in loneliness). However, only 1 to 6% of all adolescents (socially rich and poor) felt closer both in the short- and longer-term. These results indicate that the rich-get-richer and the poor-get-richer hypotheses can hold both, but for different adolescents.

Prospective associations between social status and social anxiety in early adolescence.

This study examined the transactional longitudinal association between social status (likeability and popularity) and social anxiety symptoms (fear of negative evaluation and social avoidance and distress), and explored gender differences in this association. Participants included 274 adolescents (136 boys, Mage  = 12.55). Data were collected at two waves with a 6-month interval. Likeability and popularity were measured with peer nominations and social anxiety symptoms with self-reports. Autoregressive cross-lagged path models showed relative stability of social status and social anxiety. Girls who were seen as less popular by their classmates avoided social situations more frequently and experienced more distress during such situations over time. These results highlight the importance of distinguishing between different social status components and social anxiety symptoms and to take gender into account. Early support for less popular girls seems important to prevent more severe consequences of avoidance and distress, such as social exclusion and victimization.

Social media use and friendship closeness in adolescents' daily lives: An experience sampling study.

The formation and maintenance of friendship closeness is an important developmental task in adolescence. To obtain insight in real-time processes that may underly the development of friendship closeness in middle adolescence, this preregistered experience sampling study [ESM] investigated the effects of social media use on friendship closeness. The study was conducted among 387 adolescents (54% girls; Mage = 14.11 years; 96% Dutch) from different educational tracks (44% lower prevocational secondary education, 31% intermediate general secondary education, 26% academic preparatory education). Adolescents reported six times per day for 3 weeks on their Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat use in the previous hour and their momentary experiences of friendship closeness (126 assessments; 34,930 observations). Multilevel analyses revealed positive between-person associations of friendship closeness with general WhatsApp use and Instagram use with close friends. In contrast, at the within-person level, we found small negative overall associations of general WhatsApp use and Instagram use (with and without close friends) with friendship closeness. However, there was large heterogeneity in the person-specific effect sizes of the within-person associations of social media use with friendship closeness. For example, person-specific effect sizes of the association of Instagram use with close friends with friendship closeness ranged from ß = -.745 to ß = .697. These results underline the importance of acknowledging person-specific effects in developmental and media effect theories. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The effect of social media on well-being differs from adolescent to adolescent.

The question whether social media use benefits or undermines adolescents' well-being is an important societal concern. Previous empirical studies have mostly established across-the-board effects among (sub)populations of adolescents. As a result, it is still an open question whether the effects are unique for each individual adolescent. We sampled adolescents' experiences six times per day for one week to quantify differences in their susceptibility to the effects of social media on their momentary affective well-being. Rigorous analyses of 2,155 real-time assessments showed that the association between social media use and affective well-being differs strongly across adolescents: While 44% did not feel better or worse after passive social media use, 46% felt better, and 10% felt worse. Our results imply that person-specific effects can no longer be ignored in research, as well as in prevention and intervention programs.

Early-life and pubertal stress differentially modulate grey matter development in human adolescents.

Animal and human studies have shown that both early-life traumatic events and ongoing stress episodes affect neurodevelopment, however, it remains unclear whether and how they modulate normative adolescent neuro-maturational trajectories. We characterized effects of early-life (age 0-5) and ongoing stressors (age 14-17) on longitudinal changes (age 14 to17) in grey matter volume (GMV) of healthy adolescents (n = 37). Timing and stressor type were related to differential GMV changes. More personal early-life stressful events were associated with larger developmental reductions in GMV over anterior prefrontal cortex, amygdala and other subcortical regions; whereas ongoing stress from the adolescents' social environment was related to smaller reductions over the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortex. These findings suggest that early-life stress accelerates pubertal development, whereas an adverse adolescent social environment disturbs brain maturation with potential mental health implications: delayed anterior cingulate maturation was associated with more antisocial traits - a juvenile precursor of psychopathy.

Predicting Adolescents' Bullying Participation from Developmental Trajectories of Social Status and Behavior.

The aim of this study was to determine how trajectory clusters of social status (social preference and perceived popularity) and behavior (direct aggression and prosocial behavior) from age 9 to age 14 predicted adolescents' bullying participant roles at age 16 and 17 (n = 266). Clusters were identified with multivariate growth mixture modeling (GMM). The findings showed that participants' developmental trajectories of social status and social behavior across childhood and early adolescence predicted their bullying participant role involvement in adolescence. Practical implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Adolescents' explicit and implicit evaluations of hypothetical and actual peers with different bullying participant roles.

This study examined how adolescents evaluate bullying at three levels of specificity: (a) the general concept of bullying, (b) hypothetical peers in different bullying participant roles, and (c) actual peers in different bullying participant roles. Participants were 163 predominantly ethnic majority adolescents in The Netherlands (58% girls; Mage=16.34years, SD=0.79). For the hypothetical peers, we examined adolescents' explicit evaluations as well as their implicit evaluations. Adolescents evaluated the general concept of bullying negatively. Adolescents' explicit evaluations of hypothetical and actual peers in the bullying roles depended on their own role, but adolescents' implicit evaluations of hypothetical peers did not. Adolescents' explicit evaluations of hypothetical peers and actual peers were different. Hypothetical bullies were evaluated negatively by all classmates, whereas hypothetical victims were evaluated relatively positively compared with the other roles. However, when adolescents evaluated their actual classmates, the differences between bullies and the other roles were smaller, whereas victims were evaluated the most negatively of all roles. Further research should take into account that adolescents' evaluations of hypothetical peers differ from their evaluations of actual peers.

Peer victimization in adolescence: Concordance between measures and associations with global and daily internalizing problems.

This study aimed to shed further light on what is measured by self-, peer-, and daily diary-reports of victimization in adolescence. First, the concordance between self-, peer-, and daily diary-reports of victimization was assessed. Participants were 188 Dutch adolescents (43% male, Mage = 16.07 years, SD = .84) who participated in a classroom assessment and daily diary assessment (5 consecutive school days). Peer-reports (15%) and self-reports (13%) yielded higher prevalence rates than diary-reports (3%). Second, associations of self- and peer-reported victimization with self-, peer-, and daily diary-reported internalizing problems were examined. Due to its low prevalence, diary-reported victimization could not be related to internalizing. The association of self- and peer-reported victimization with internalizing problems varied by informant (self- vs. peer-reported internalizing) and problem type (interpersonal vs. intrapersonal). Self- and peer-reported victimization were positively associated with daily internalizing affect. Results indicate that self-, peer-, and daily diary-reports tap into different aspects of victimization.

Interpretations of bullying by bullies, victims, and bully-victims in interactions at different levels of abstraction.

According to the Social Information Processing Model of children's adjustment, children develop general interpretation styles for future social events based on past social experiences. Previous research has shown associations between interpretations of social situations and internalizing and externalizing symptoms. This study investigated whether bullies, victims, bully-victims, and uninvolved children interpreted ambiguous human interactions differently in terms of bullying and whether these interpretations generalized to abstract non-human interactions. Participants were 390 children (49% girls, Mage = 10.3 years) who completed self-report measures of bullying and victimization. In addition, they indicated whether video fragments of positive, negative, or ambiguous interactions between humans, animals, and abstract figures depicted bullying situations. Bully-victims reported more bullying than victims and uninvolved children in ambiguous abstract figure, animal, and human fragments and in positive animal fragments. Children who bully did not differ from the other groups. These findings indicate that interpretations of bullying generalized from ambiguous human interactions to more abstract ambiguous animal and abstract figure interactions. Implications for further research and practice were discussed.

Participant roles of bullying in adolescence: Status characteristics, social behavior, and assignment criteria.

This study had three goals. First, we examined the prevalence of the participant roles of bullying in middle adolescence and possible gender differences therein. Second, we examined the behavioral and status characteristics associated with the participant roles in middle adolescence. Third, we compared two sets of criteria for assigning students to the participant roles of bullying. Participants were 1,638 adolescents (50.9% boys, M(age) = 16.38 years, SD =.80) who completed the shortened participant role questionnaire and peer nominations for peer status and behavioral characteristics. Adolescents were assigned to the participant roles according to the relative criteria of Salmivalli, Lagerspetz, Björkqvist, Österman, and Kaukiainen (1996). Next, the students in each role were divided in two subgroups based on an additional absolute criterion: the Relative Only Criterion subgroup (nominated by less than 10% of their classmates) and the Absolute & Relative Criterion subgroup (nominated by at least 10% of their classmates). Adolescents who bullied or reinforced or assisted bullies were highly popular and disliked and scored high on peer-valued characteristics. Adolescents who were victimized held the weakest social position in the peer group. Adolescents who defended victims were liked and prosocial, but average in popularity and peer-valued characteristics. Outsiders held a socially weak position in the peer group, but were less disliked, less aggressive, and more prosocial than victims. The behavior and status profiles of adolescents in the participant roles were more extreme for the Absolute & Relative Criterion subgroup than for the Relative Only Criterion subgroup.

Facing temptation in the bar: counteracting the effects of self-control failure on young adults' ad libitum alcohol intake.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The self-control strength model suggests that exertion of self-control leads to poorer subsequent self-control performance. Failure of self-control has been suggested as an important underlying mechanism of excessive drinking. This study tested the effects of self-control failure on ad libitum drinking, and the potential moderating role of glucose and self-awareness on this relationship. DESIGN: The current research examined in two experiments whether the effects of self-control failure were different for males and females, and whether glucose (experiment 1) and self-awareness (experiment 2) would counteract the effects of self-control failure. A between-participants design with four conditions was employed in each experiment. SETTING: A semi-naturalistic drinking setting in the form of a laboratory bar. PARTICIPANTS: Undergraduate students recruited at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands (experiment 1: n = 106; experiment 2: n = 108). MEASUREMENTS: The total amount of alcohol consumed during an experimental break (observational data) and questionnaire data on drinking patterns. FINDINGS: Self-control failure led to increased levels of drinking in males (P < 0.05), whereas females drank less after being depleted (P < 0.01). Self-awareness, but not glucose, was found to counteract the effects of self-control failure among males (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Self-control failure leads to increased drinking of alcohol in males and decreased levels of drinking alcohol in females. However, increasing self-awareness appears to be a promising strategy in facing the temptation to drink when cognitive resources to inhibit intake are low.

Correlates and outcomes associated with aggression and victimization among elementary-school children in a low-income urban context.

Previous research suggests that the prevalence of aggression is high among low-income urban youth who have to cope with a number of psychological stressors. Less is known about the early development and consequences of aggression and peer victimization prior to adolescence in these contexts. This study examined the correlates, interplay, and consequences of aggression and victimization among children in a low-income urban context. Data were collected in the spring of grades 1, 2, and 3. The final sample included 333 children (59.5 % girls, M = 6.46 years). Each year, children completed sociometric and peer assessments in their classrooms. A cross-lagged panel model with extended effects showed that aggression was relatively stable over time, whereas victimization was less stable. Aggression and victimization became increasingly less correlated over time. Further, early victimization negatively predicted later aggression for boys, but positively for girls. Growth curve modeling showed that initial aggression and victimization were associated with initial behavioral and relational problems. Early aggression, but not victimization, predicted relative stable or increasing in behavioral and relational problems over time. The results underscore the importance of a developmental perspective on early childhood aggression and victimization in high-risk contexts, in order to understand their implications for adjustment in adolescence.