Social Media Use and Popularity in Adolescents: Examining Bidirectional Relationships and Impact on Psychological Adjustment

• In Event: 2-106 - #PeerProblems: Examining the Role of Social Media in Transforming Peer Experiences and Influencing Adolescent Adjustment

Integrative Statement

Background: Self-perceived popularity represents a salient dimension of adolescents’ peer status and increases risk for maladaptive emotional and behavioral development. According to the transformation framework (Nesi, Choukas-Bradley, & Prinstein, 2018), the social media context provides innumerable opportunities for adolescents to amplify their peer status and/or to “curate” selective self-presentations in pursuit of increasing status. As such, social media use may contribute to changes in self-perceived popularity, and vice versa. Moreover, the constant accessibility to peer content and quantifiable status information (e.g., “likes”) afforded by social media also may heighten adolescents’ concerns about peer status, intensify demands to maintain or increase status, and enhance the salience of upward social comparisons (Nesi et al., 2018). Social media use, therefore, may exacerbate the influence of self-perceived popularity on psychological maladjustment. These hypotheses have yet to be evaluated.

Objectives: The current study aimed to: 1) examine the prospective, bidirectional relationships between social media use and self-perceived popularity in a community sample of early adolescents; and 2) evaluate whether social media use amplified the influence of self-perceived popularity on risk for internalizing and externalizing problems.

Methods: Participants were 1,205 students enrolled in the 7th and 8th grades at five public middle schools in the New England region of the U.S. (11-14 years of age; 51% girls; 51% non-Hispanic White). Participants completed validated self-report questionnaires of image-based social media platform use (Snapchat, Instagram), self-perceived popularity, anxiety disorder symptoms, depressive symptoms, alcohol use, and delinquent behaviors during school in the fall of 2016 (T1) and six months later, in the spring of 2017 (T2). Path analyses were used to examine hypotheses, and multiple group analyses evaluated gender differences. Covariates included T1 age, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and all psychosocial outcomes.

Results: The path model examining the bidirectional relationships between social media use and self-perceived popularity provided a good fit to the data, χ2(54)=22.63, p>.05; CFI=.99; TLI=.98; RMSEA=.02, 90% CIRMSEA=.01-.03. More frequent T1 social media use predicted increased T2 self-perceived popularity, and, conversely, higher T1 self-perceived popularity predicted increased T2 social media use (Figure 1). The magnitude of these associations was the same for girls and boys, ∆χ2(10)=12.31, p>.05. The second path model examining social media moderation effects provided a good fit to the data, χ2(56)=240.31, p<.001; CFI=.96; TLI=.95; RMSEA=.05, 90% CIRMSEA=.04-.06. Multiple group analyses suggested significant gender differences in the structural weights, ∆χ2(28)=48.89, p<.01. Significant social media use x self-perceived popularity interaction effects were found for girls (Figure 2A), but not boys (Figure 2B). Among girls, the positive associations between T1 self-perceived popularity and T2 anxiety disorder symptoms, depressive symptoms, and total alcohol consumption were more robust at higher levels of social media use (Figure 2A).

Discussion: Findings generally support the tenets of the transformation framework (Nesi et al., 2018), which suggests that social media use may amplify peer status processes during adolescence. Furthermore, early adolescent girls may be especially vulnerable to the negative psychological consequences of social media use and self-perceived popularity. Additional research is needed to evaluate potential mechanisms involved in the relationships among social media use, peer status, and psychological adjustment during adolescence.

Authors

• Anna Vannucci, Connecticut Children's Medical Center
  Presenting Author

• Christine McCauley Ohannessian, University of Connecticut School of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author