3-049 - Be-Tween Devices: Connecting Pre- and Early- Adolescents’ Mobile Device Use and Wellbeing

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Tweens are increasingly interacting with their peers through mobile devices. For many, cellphone use and even ownership begins during this time and many tweens are increasingly connected to others through texting, social media, and interactive gaming. However, the bulk of media research has focused on older adolescents and emerging adults. Since peer relationships increase in importance during this age, greater investigation into the influence of constant connectivity on socio-emotional development for tweens is warranted. This symposium brings together four presentations that are methodologically diverse and consist of geographically and ethnically heterogeneous samples in the United States and United Kingdom. The first uses a structured task to examine whether tweens’ abilities to read nonverbal emotional cues have changed in the past five years, as the number of homes with mobile devices has skyrocketed. The second uses a nationally representative longitudinal dataset to examine how changes in social media use between the ages of 10 and 15 are associated with changes in wellbeing. The third also examines the relation between media use and wellbeing, but through a lab-based experiment that tests whether texting a friend can help reduce stress. Using interviews, the fourth examines how tweens actively try to maximize the positive effects of media use on wellbeing by adapting strategies to increase positive responses and minimize negative interactions. Together, these studies seek to inform parents, educators, and health professionals on how media use shapes preadolescents’ socio-emotional development and conversely how preadolescents are shaping their media use to meet their socio-emotional needs.

Sub Unit

• Technology, Media & Child Development

Chair

• Joanna C. Yau, University of California, Irvine

Individual Presentations

• Cross-temporal Comparison of Two Cohorts of Sixth Grade Students’ Ability to Read Nonverbal Emotional Cues - Presenting Author: Yalda Uhls, UCLA; Non-Presenting Author: Julia Broome, UCLA; Non-Presenting Author: Shani Levi, Children's Digital Media Center@LA; Non-Presenting Author: Jade Beaver, Children's Digital Media Center@LA; Non-Presenting Author: Patricia Greenfield, Children's Digital Media Center@LA

• Does Body Image and Family Support Mediate the Relationship between Changes in Social Media Interaction and Well-Being? - Presenting Author: Cara Booker, University of Essex

• Coping with Stress through Texting - Presenting Author: Joanna C. Yau, University of California, Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Stephanie Reich, University of California, Irvine

• Proceed With Caution: Tweens’ Self-Protective Strategies When Initiating Social Media Use - Presenting Author: B. Bradford Brown, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Non-Presenting Author: Angela Calvin, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Non-Presenting Author: Ashley Prudhom, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Non-Presenting Author: GeckHong Yeo, University of Wisconsin-Madison