The relationship between perceived income inequality, adverse mental health and interpersonal difficulties in UK adolescents.

BACKGROUND: Adolescence is a period of life when young people increasingly define themselves through peer comparison and are vulnerable to developing mental health problems. In the current study, we investigated whether the subjective experience of economic disadvantage among friends is associated with social difficulties and poorer mental health in early adolescence. METHODS: We used latent change score modelling (LCSM) on data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study, collected at ages 11 and 14 (N = 12,995). Each LCSM modelled the mean of an outcome related to mental health and interpersonal difficulties at age 11 (including self-esteem, well-being, emotional difficulties, peer problems, bullying, victimisation and externalising difficulties), the change of the outcome from ages 11 to 14 and its predictors, including perceived income inequality among friends (i.e. perceiving oneself as belonging to a poorer family than the families of one's friends). RESULTS: Perceived income inequality predicted adverse mental health and a range of interpersonal difficulties during adolescence, even when controlling for objective family income. Follow-up analyses highlighted that, at 11 years, young people who perceived themselves as belonging to poorer families than their friends reported worse well-being, self-esteem, internalising problems, externalising problems and victimisation at the same age (relative to those who perceived themselves as richer than or equal to their friends, or who did not know). Longitudinal analyses suggested that victimisation decreased from ages 11 to 14 to a greater extent for adolescents who perceived themselves as poorer than other adolescents. CONCLUSIONS: The salience of economic inequalities in proximal social environments (e.g. among friends) in early adolescence could further amplify the negative effects of economic disadvantage on mental health and behavioural difficulties during this period.

Social determinants of mental health during a year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Belonging is a basic human need, with social isolation signaling a threat to biological fitness. Sensitivity to ostracism varies across individuals and the lifespan, peaking in adolescence. Government-imposed restrictions upon social interactions during COVID-19 may therefore be particularly detrimental to young people and those most sensitive to ostracism. Participants (N = 2367; 89.95% female, 11-100 years) from three countries with differing levels of government restrictions (Australia, UK, and USA) were surveyed thrice at three-month intervals (May 2020 - April 2021). Young people, and those living under the tightest government restrictions, reported the worst mental health, with these inequalities in mental health remaining constant throughout the study period. Further dissection of these results revealed that young people high on social rejection sensitivity reported the most mental health problems at the final assessment. These findings help account for the greater impact of enforced social isolation on young people's mental health, and open novel avenues for intervention.

Debate: Should academics collaborate with digital companies to improve young people's mental health?

Should academics collaborate with social media and gaming companies to identify and reduce mental health impacts on children and young people? While opinions on this question sharply diverge within the academic community, in practice collaboration is already widespread. As digital platforms increasingly dominate the time and attention of many young people and are the source of both considerable concern as well as offering innovative opportunities for beneficial interventions, researchers are recognising the potential for collaboration to accelerate positive impact. However, concerns over the independence and transparency of collaborative research have received little institutional or collective response. Recognising both the promise and the pitfalls, this debate article calls for multidisciplinary deliberation within the academy to support the co-development of clear guidelines on the principles and processes by which collaboration is best undertaken, as well as the basis for ensuring that some research remains independent.

Social media's enduring effect on adolescent life satisfaction.

In this study, we used large-scale representative panel data to disentangle the between-person and within-person relations linking adolescent social media use and well-being. We found that social media use is not, in and of itself, a strong predictor of life satisfaction across the adolescent population. Instead, social media effects are nuanced, small at best, reciprocal over time, gender specific, and contingent on analytic methods.

Teenagers, screens and social media: a narrative review of reviews and key studies.

INTRODUCTION: In light of growing concerns about an increasingly digital adolescence, the academic field investigating how digital technologies affect adolescents' psychological well-being is growing rapidly. In the last years, much research has amassed, and this has been summarised in over 80 systematic reviews and meta-analyses. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Systematic reviews, meta-analyses and key studies are reviewed to provide insights into the state of current research linking digital technology and social media use to well-being; possible future directions and improvements are discussed. RESULTS: When examining the reviews, it becomes evident that the research field is dominated by cross-sectional work that is generally of a low quality standard. While research has highlighted the importance of differentiating between different types of digital technology use many studies do not consider such necessary nuances. These limitations aside, the association between digital technology use, or social media use in particular, and psychological well-being is-on average-negative but very small. Furthermore, the direction of the link between digital technology use and well-being is still unclear: effects have been found to exist in both directions and there has been little work done to rule out potential confounders. CONCLUSIONS: Reviewing the last decade of reviews in the area, it is evident that the research field needs to refocus on improving transparency, interpreting effect sizes and changing measurement. It also needs to show a greater appreciation for the individual differences that will inherently shape each adolescent's reaction to digital technologies.

Screens, Teens, and Psychological Well-Being: Evidence From Three Time-Use-Diary Studies.

The notion that digital-screen engagement decreases adolescent well-being has become a recurring feature in public, political, and scientific conversation. The current level of psychological evidence, however, is far removed from the certainty voiced by many commentators. There is little clear-cut evidence that screen time decreases adolescent well-being, and most psychological results are based on single-country, exploratory studies that rely on inaccurate but popular self-report measures of digital-screen engagement. In this study, which encompassed three nationally representative large-scale data sets from Ireland, the United States, and the United Kingdom ( N = 17,247 after data exclusions) and included time-use-diary measures of digital-screen engagement, we used both exploratory and confirmatory study designs to introduce methodological and analytical improvements to a growing psychological research area. We found little evidence for substantial negative associations between digital-screen engagement-measured throughout the day or particularly before bedtime-and adolescent well-being.

Social uncertainty in the digital world.

The social world is inherently uncertain. We present a computational framework for thinking about how increasingly popular online environments modulate the social uncertainty we experience, depending on the type of social inferences we make. This framework draws on Bayesian inference, which involves combining multiple informational sources to update our beliefs.

Social Media Use and Internalizing Symptoms in Clinical and Community Adolescent Samples: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Importance: In response to widespread concerns about social media's influence on adolescent mental health, most research has studied adolescents from the general population, overlooking clinical groups. Objective: To synthesize, quantify, and compare evidence on the association between social media use and internalizing symptoms in adolescent clinical and community samples. Data Sources: Peer-reviewed publications from MEDLINE, Web of Science, PsycInfo, and Scopus (initially reviewed in May 2022 and updated in October 2023) and preprints from Europe PubMed Central (February 2023) published in English between 2007 and 2023. Study Selection: Two blinded reviewers initially identified 14 211 cross-sectional and longitudinal studies quantifying the association between social media use and internalizing symptoms, excluding experimental studies and randomized clinical trials. Data Extraction and Synthesis: PRISMA and MOOSE guidelines were followed, pooling data using a random-effects model and robust variance estimation. The quality of evidence was assessed using the Quality of Survey Studies in Psychology Checklist. Main Outcomes and Measures: Articles were included if they reported at least 1 quantitative measure of social media use (time spent, active vs passive use, activity, content, user perception, and other) and internalizing symptoms (anxiety, depression, or both). Results: The 143 studies reviewed included 1 094 890 adolescents and 886 effect sizes, 11% of which examined clinical samples. In these samples, a positive and significant meta-correlation was found between social media use and internalizing symptoms, both for time spent (n = 2893; r, 0.08; 95% CI, 0.01 to 0.15; P = .03; I2, 57.83) and user engagement (n = 859; r, 0.12; 95% CI, 0.09 to 0.15; P = .002; I2, 82.67). These associations mirrored those in community samples. Conclusions and Relevance: The findings in this study highlight a lack of research on clinical populations, a critical gap considering public concerns about the increase in adolescent mental health symptoms at clinical levels. This paucity of evidence not only restricts the generalizability of existing research but also hinders our ability to evaluate and compare the link between social media use and mental health in clinical vs nonclinical populations.

Lack of Sample Diversity in Research on Adolescent Depression and Social Media Use: A Scoping Review and Meta-Analysis.

Research on whether social media use relates to adolescent depression is rapidly increasing. However, is it adequately representing the diversity of global adolescent populations? We conducted a preregistered scoping review (research published between 2018 and 2020; 34 articles) to investigate the proportion of studies recruiting samples from the Global North versus Global South and assess whether the association between social media and depression varies depending on the population being studied. Sample diversity was lacking between regions: More than 70% of studies examined Global North populations. The link between social media and depression was positive and significant in the Global North but null and nonsignificant in the Global South. There was also little evidence of diversity within regions in both sampling choices and reporting of participants' demographics. Given that most adolescents live in the Global South and sample diversity is crucial for the generalizability of research findings, urgent action is needed to address these oversights.

Impact of digital screen media activity on functional brain organization in late childhood: Evidence from the ABCD study.

The idea that the increased ubiquity of digital devices negatively impacts neurodevelopment is as compelling as it is disturbing. This study investigated this concern by systematically evaluating how different profiles of screen-based engagement related to functional brain organization in late childhood. We studied participants from a large and representative sample of young people participating in the first two years of the ABCD study (ages 9-12 years) to investigate the relations between self-reported use of various digital screen media activity (SMA) and functional brain organization. A series of generalized additive mixed models evaluated how these relationships related to functional outcomes associated with health and cognition. Of principal interest were two hypotheses: First, that functional brain organization (assessed through resting state functional connectivity MRI; rs-fcMRI) is related to digital screen engagement; and second, that children with higher rates of engagement will have functional brain organization profiles related to maladaptive functioning. Results did not support either of these predictions for SMA. Further, exploratory analyses predicting how screen media activity impacted neural trajectories showed no significant impact of SMA on neural maturation over a two-year period.

Using Browser Data to Understand Desires to Spend Time Online.

There is growing recognition that many people feel the need to regulate their use of the internet and other digital technologies to support their wellbeing. In this study, we used Mozilla Firefox browser telemetry to investigate the role played by various usage factors in desires to regulate time spent online. In particular, we investigated how six metrics pertaining to time spent on the internet, and the diversity and intensity of use, predict participants' (n = 8,094) desires to spend more or less time online. Across all six metrics, we did not find evidence for a relationship between browser usage metrics and participants wanting to spend more or less time online. This finding was robust across various analytical pathways. The study highlights a number of considerations and concerns that need to be addressed in future industry-academia collaborations that draw on trace data or usage telemetry.

Not All Effects Are Indispensable: Psychological Science Requires Verifiable Lines of Reasoning for Whether an Effect Matters.

To help move researchers away from heuristically dismissing "small" effects as unimportant, recent articles have revisited arguments to defend why seemingly small effect sizes in psychological science matter. One argument is based on the idea that an observed effect size may increase in impact when generalized to a new context because of processes of accumulation over time or application to large populations. However, the field is now in danger of heuristically accepting all effects as potentially important. We aim to encourage researchers to think thoroughly about the various mechanisms that may both amplify and counteract the importance of an observed effect size. Researchers should draw on the multiple amplifying and counteracting mechanisms that are likely to simultaneously apply to the effect when that effect is being generalized to a new and likely more dynamic context. In this way, researchers should aim to transparently provide verifiable lines of reasoning to justify their claims about an effect's importance or unimportance. This transparency can help move psychological science toward a more rigorous assessment of when psychological findings matter for the contexts that researchers want to generalize to.

Social media and adolescent well-being in the Global South.

Despite the rapid proliferation of digital technologies in the Global South, most academic research on social media and adolescent well-being has primarily focused on the Global North. This review investigates how social media impacts adolescent well-being in the Global South. We first review five regions (Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East & North Africa, Latin America, China and South & South-East Asia) to highlight the complex ways social media interacts with well-being around the world. We then outline research gaps in the current understanding of the impacts of social media use on adolescent populations in diverse cultural contexts. We finally highlight potential lines of inquiry that future researchers could explore to build a nuanced, contextual perspective of the risks and opportunities of social media use.

Windows of developmental sensitivity to social media.

The relationship between social media use and life satisfaction changes across adolescent development. Our analyses of two UK datasets comprising 84,011 participants (10-80 years old) find that the cross-sectional relationship between self-reported estimates of social media use and life satisfaction ratings is most negative in younger adolescents. Furthermore, sex differences in this relationship are only present during this time. Longitudinal analyses of 17,409 participants (10-21 years old) suggest distinct developmental windows of sensitivity to social media in adolescence, when higher estimated social media use predicts a decrease in life satisfaction ratings one year later (and vice-versa: lower estimated social media use predicts an increase in life satisfaction ratings). These windows occur at different ages for males (14-15 and 19 years old) and females (11-13 and 19 years old). Decreases in life satisfaction ratings also predicted subsequent increases in estimated social media use, however, these were not associated with age or sex.

Trajectories of adolescent life satisfaction.

Increasing global policy interest in measuring and improving population wellbeing has prompted academic investigations into the dynamics of lifespan life satisfaction. Yet little research has assessed the complete adolescent age range, although it harbours developmental changes that could affect wellbeing far into adulthood. This study investigates how life satisfaction develops throughout the whole of adolescence, and compares this development to that in adulthood, by applying exploratory and confirmatory latent growth curve modelling to UK and German data, respectively (37 076 participants, 10-24 years). We find a near universal decrease in life satisfaction during adolescence. This decrease is steeper than at any other point across adulthood. Further, our findings suggest that adolescent girls' life satisfaction is lower than boys', but that this difference does not extend into adulthood. The study highlights the importance of studying adolescent subjective wellbeing trajectories to inform research, policy and practice.

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.

Digital access constraints predict worse mental health among adolescents during COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing social restrictions disrupted young people's social interactions and resulted in several periods during which school closures necessitated online learning. We hypothesised that digitally excluded young people would demonstrate greater deterioration in their mental health than their digitally connected peers during this time. We analysed representative mental health data from a sample of UK 10-15-year-olds (N = 1387) who completed a mental health inventory in 2017-2019 and thrice during the pandemic (July 2020, November 2020 and March 2021). We employed longitudinal modelling to describe trajectories of adolescent mental health for participants with and without access to a computer or a good internet connection for schoolwork. Adolescent mental health symptoms rose early in the COVID-19 pandemic, with the highest mean Total Difficulties score around December 2020. The worsening and subsequent recovery of mental health during the pandemic was greatly pronounced among those without access to a computer, although we did not find evidence for a similar effect among those without a good internet connection. We conclude that lack of access to a computer is a tractable risk factor that likely compounds other adversities facing children and young people during periods of social isolation or educational disruption.