Misplaced Harms and Gender Differences in Adolescent Self-Esteem and Social Media Use: A Longitudinal Study

• In Event: 40816 - Digital Lives and Social Ties: Examining Identity, Agency, and Influence Online

Abstract

A prevailing narrative suggests that social media is broadly harmful to adolescent mental health. Yet much of the existing evidence consists of short-term experimental designs that conflate developmentally typical stressors with clinical disorders – overlooking the everyday contexts of adolescent life. We argue that this narrative incorrectly blames social media for general harm, rather than recognizing it as a response to societal changes that have limited opportunities for unsupervised, informal peer interaction. These changes include intensive parenting, academic pressures, and a shift towards structured activities over informal socializing. Social media, in this view, is a consequence of this loss, not its cause. We collected two waves of survey data (2019 and 2022) from 653 students (grades 8/9 and again in 11/12). Using cross-lagged panel modeling, we examined change in self-esteem alongside measures of media use, parental mediation of media, time spent in structured extracurriculars (e.g., sports), and informal socializing with peers and family. Notably, self-esteem was chosen as the focal indicator of adolescent mental well-being instead of typical measures of anxiety and depression, which can struggle to distinguish normal developmental fears and worries from genuine disorders. Our findings challenge the prevailing narrative. For girls, higher social media use was associated with increased self-esteem over time – a substantial positive effect comparable to the negative impact of pandemic-era remote learning that took place over the same period. Importantly, while social media use for girls, and video game use for boys, displaced family time, they did not reduce time spent with friends. This pattern mirrors how informal, in-person socializing with peers has historically displaced time spent with family – situating social media use as a likely stand-in for the loss of these traditional, in-person activities. Indeed, for most girls, social media appears to fulfill a need for informal peer connection.

Authors

• Keith N. Hampton, Michigan State University

• Gabriel E Hales, Michigan State University