Poster #237 - Perceptions of Social Media Rather Than Amount of Use PredictsTeen Anxiety and Social-Emotional Well-being

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Technology, Media & Child Development

Integrative Statement

The use of social media and other forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC) has grown exponentially in the last ten years, with the current generation of adolescents being the first to have grown up entirely surrounded by CMC. Yet despite a growing movement to restrict the amount of time adolescents spend using CMC and mobile devices, relatively little is known about the emotional consequences of CMC. Previous studies show that CMC is associated with positive emotional well-being (Kraut et al., 2002; Shaw & Gant, 2002) as well as distress and depression (Blease 2015; Caplan, 2003), or have found no association with socio-emotion health (Ohannessian, 2009). One explanation for these mixed findings is that previous research has focused on quantity of CMC use, ignoring motivations for and perceptions of CMC. Recent research (e.g. Babkirk et al., 2016; Carpenter, 2012) suggests that emotional well-being and other clinically-relevant outcomes may be best examined using more nuanced measures, such as distinguishing between active (e.g. direct communication) versus passive (e.g. Facebook browsing) CMC use, goals for using CMC (e.g. expressing distress or positive emotion), and subjective perceptions of personal CMC use (e.g. social media faciliates versus interferes with well-being). A greater understanding of the associations between subjective perceptions of CMC and socio-emotional functioning is needed, specifically among anxious adolescents. In the current study, 16 (11 female) clinically anxious adolescents ages 12-14 (M = 14.02, SD = 0.69) and their parents self-reported amount of use, motivations, and perceptions of CMC (Social Media Communication Questionniare; Babkirk et al., 2016) and emotional well-being (e.g. anxiety and depression symptoms). Parents also reported on their child’s socio-emotional functioning. We hypothesized that more negative perceptions of CMC, but not greater overall amount of use, would be associated with greater anxiety and depression symptom severity and reduced socio-emotional well-being. As predicted, more negative overall perceptions of social media were significantly correlated with greater self-reported anxiety [r(16) = .769, p = .001] (Figure 1). As seen in Table 1, specific subcategories of negative perception were significantly correlated with measures of anxiety, social problems, and emotion regulation. Higher levels of perceiving social media as burdensome were associated with greater child-reported anxiety and problems with emotion regulation. Higher levels of perceiving social media as interfering were associated with greater anxiety, greater parent-report of teen social problems and problems with emotion regulation. Higher levels of worry about social media were associated with greater anxiety and problems with emotion regulation. Importantly, amount of use was not significantly associated with any outcomes, all p’s > .148. These findings highlight the developmental and clinical relevance of evaluating subjective experiences of CMC rather than sheer amount of use. Future research must examine potential causal or bidirectional associations between CMC use and adolescent well-being.

Authors

• David Yap, Hunter College, City University of New York
  Presenting Author

• Sarah Myruski, NYU Lagone Medical Center
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, Hunter College, The City University of New York
  Non-Presenting Author