Youth Media Use Behaviors during COVID-19: Pre-Pandemic, Early Pandemic Onset, and One Year Later

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Digital media use is an increasingly studied developmental context for youth around the world (e.g., Chassiakos et al., 2016), and its importance was highlighted during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 (Király et al., 2020). The three studies in this symposium focus on how youth are using media in the years since the pandemic’s onset, mental health correlates, and the relation between digital and offline behaviors. All studies use distinct samples and methodologies with multiple time points to examine longitudinal and developmental trajectories of media use behaviors in youth. First, Paper 1 authors share a longitudinal analysis of problematic media use of Peruvian adolescents across spring 2020, summer 2021, and fall 2021. They found an increase in problematic media use among adolescents with mental health vulnerabilities and girls. Next, Paper 2 examines how pre-pandemic (winter 2019) sociometric status and digital status seeking (e.g., students trying to get likes and comments) relate to early pandemic (summer 2020) digital and offline behaviors in a sample of racially diverse U.S. adolescents, and found that popular boys were more likely to take COVID health-related risks. Finally, Paper 3 discusses how screen and problematic media use shifted for predominantly White U.S. children from 2019 to 2021, and found that both decreased from 2020 to 2021, but parents were still concerned about their child’s media use. Our discussant will discuss implications of these screen use behaviors and expectations for youth media use as the pandemic (potentially) winds down.

Sub Unit

• Solicited Content: COVID-19 Related

Chair

• Lauren Eales, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Discussant

• Sarah E. Domoff, Central Michigan University

Individual Presentations

• Trajectories of Problematic Media use During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Adolescents in Perú - Daniela Munoz Lopez, University of Washington; Sarah E. Domoff, Central Michigan University; Estelle L. Berger, University of Oregon; Presenting Author: Lucía Magis-Weinberg, University of Washington

• Sociometric Status and Digital Status Seeking as Predictors of COVID-era Offline and Digital Behaviors - Presenting Author: Kaitlyn Burnell, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Nathan Field, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Eva H Telzer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Mitchell J Prinstein, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Is this a “Return to Normal”? How Children’s Screen Media Use and Problematic Media Use Shifted from 2020 to 2021 - Presenting Author: Lauren Eales, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Gail M Ferguson, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Danna Kim; Gabrielle Allen, University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Yu Zhang, University of Minnesota Twin Cities