Distinct Use of Social Media Platforms and Popular-Aggressive Status in Adolescence

• In Event: 1-165 - Individual Differences in Adolescents’ use of Communication Technology

Integrative Statement

For many adolescents, popularity in the peer group is a salient social goal (e.g., LaFontana & Cillessen, 2010). However, the pursuit of high status can come at a significant developmental cost. There are consistent associations between popularity and pernicious outcomes including substance abuse, early sexual experimentation, academic difficulties, and aggressive behavior (e.g., Mayeux et al., 2008; Schwartz & Gorman, 2011; Prinstein et al., 2011). These relations are markedly elevated for highly aggressive youths (Dodge et al., 2006; Schwartz et al., 2006; Troop-Gordon et al., 2011). As technology has become ubiquitous in adolescents’ lives, popular-aggressive youth may be identified by understanding specific patterns of technology use.
This short-term longitudinal study examines relations between adolescents’ digital communication tendencies, popular-aggressive status, low achievement, and rule-breaking behaviors. We expect popular-aggressive adolescents to eschew social networks used by adults and to prefer platforms more closely associated with younger demographics. We hypothesized frequent access of fashionable social networks (i.e., Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram) and texting/messaging would be linked to popular-aggressive status, rule-breaking, and low achievement. In contrast, we predicted e-mail use would be indicative of academic competence, avoidance of rule-breaking behaviors, and low levels of popularity-aggression.
Ninth graders attending a southern California high school were recruited for this study. 376 students (Mage=14.4; 55.6% female) received positive parental consent, provided assent, and participated in the study. Students completed peer nominations of popularity (“students who are popular”), unpopularity (“students who are unpopular”), and relational aggression (e.g., “students that gossip about other students”). Youth self-reported their social media use. We obtained academic and disciplinary records directly from schools. Follow-up data were collected a year later when youths were in 10th grade.
The overall pattern of bivariate effects replicated across waves (see Table 1) and was supportive of our predictions. However, the popular-aggressive configuration was stable with little variability from T1 to T2. Accordingly, our initial analyses did not include full cross-panel models.
Figure 1 depicts a structural equation model conducted using the first wave of data. E-mail, messaging, and Facebook were entered as observed variables and a “fashionable social networks” latent variable was indicated by Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter. A popular-aggressive latent variable was constructed from the peer nomination data. We also specified latent variables for academic functioning and rule-breaking.
Consistent with our hypotheses, fashionable social networks were positively associated with popular-aggressive status and rule-breaking but negatively associated with achievement. E-mail was negatively correlated with popularity-aggression and rule breaking behavior but positively associated with achievement. Moreover, multi-group models indicated that the full pattern was consistent across gender and SES.
The current findings suggest that investigating differential social media use among adolescents has important implications for understanding adolescent development. Examining youths’ social media engagement may be one way to identify popular-aggressive youth who are at a greater risk for pernicious outcomes.

Authors

• Annemarie Kelleghan, University of Southern California
  Presenting Author

• Sarah T. Malamut, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Luiza Mali, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Skye Parral, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tana Luo, University of California, San Diego
  Non-Presenting Author

• David Schwartz, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author