Adolescent social media user types and their mental health
Duration: 8 mins
Publication Date: 17 May 2022
Next Review Date: 17 May 2025
DOI: 10.13056/acamh.20165
Description
In this Video Abstract, Lizzy Winstone talks about her JCPP Advances paper ‘Adolescent social media user types and their mental health and well-being: Results from a longitudinal survey of 13–14-year-olds in the United Kingdom’. There is mixed evidence as to the effects of different types of social media use on mental health, but previous research has been platform-specific and has focused on an oversimplified distinction between active and passive use. This study aimed to identify different underlying subgroups of adolescent social media user based on their pattern of social media activities and test associations between user type and future mental health.
Learning Objectives
1. Summary of the paper and sharing insight into the methodology used for the research.
2. Why her paper suggests that this distinction may be too simplistic and comments on the four classes of social media users identified in her paper – high communicators, moderate communicators, broadcasters, and minimal users – including how each of these different groups behave.
3. Key findings from the paper and provides further commentary on her finding that moderate social media screen time was beneficial to well-being, in comparison to no use at all.
4. Discusses on gender differences in her research, plus what the implications are of her findings overall for CAMH professionals.
