Poster #94 - Who, How Much, and Why: Individual Differences in How Adolescents Feel After Using Technology

• In Event: Poster Session 08

Abstract

In adolescence, higher levels of technology use are often associated with higher levels of negative affect and lower levels of emotional well-being (Twenge, 2019). However, skeptics have also pointed out that these associations are typically correlational or have small effect sizes (Orben & Przybylski, 2019). The current study assessed how adolescents report feeling following technology use. We sought to answer the following: 1) How do adolescents report feeling after technology use, and does this vary by age and gender? 2) Is there an association between the amount of technology use and adolescents’ reported emotions following technology use? and 3) Is the association between the amount of technology use and emotions after technology use moderated by problematic technology use (i.e., losing sleep due to technology)? To address these questions, participants (n = 4,773 middle and high school students, grades 6-12; M(age) = 13.8, SD = 1.9) completed the Multidimensional Technology Use and Social Media Habits Scale (MTECH; Hoffmann et al., 2022) which takes a nuanced approach to technology use; it measures not only time spent on technology, but how adolescents engage with technology. We also employed an adapted version of the original PANAS (Watson et al., 1988) which asks students to rate how often they experience a list of emotions following technology use.
Descriptive results show that adolescents reported feeling overwhelmingly positive after using technology: positive emotions were felt most often and negative emotions were felt least often (see Figure 1). When considering gender differences, females (M = 2.05; SD = .61) reported more negative emotions after using technology than males (M = 1.88, SD = .63; t= -6.26, p<.001). Non-binary participants reported more negative emotions after technology use (M = 2.33, SD = .66) than males (t= -6.07, p<.001) and females (t= -3.95, p<.001). Average positive emotions felt after technology use was similar across genders (ts< |1.04|, p> .43). Age was positively correlated with negative emotions (.15, p < .01) and negatively correlated with positive emotions (-.05, p < .05) after technology use.
The amount of technology use was positively associated with both negative (.12, p < .01) and positive (.26, p < .01) emotions after technology use. This was consistent for male and female participants, and across age; however, no significance was found among non-binary participants.
Finally, we found that problematic technology use moderated the relationship between the amount of technology use and negative emotions after technology use (-.09, p < .01; see Figure 2), but not positive emotions. This moderation was such that higher amounts of problematic technology use would lead to more negative emotions after using technology, and this was exacerbated at the highest levels of technology use.
These results suggest the impact of technology use on adolescent affective well being is nuanced and may depend on individual differences in how and how often participants engage with technology. While problematic technology use may lead to more negative emotions after using technology, its absence does not seem to lead to a change in positive emotions after technology use.

Authors

• Sean McFarland, Yale University
  Presenting Author

• Kalee De France, Concordia University

• Jessica D Hoffmann, Yale University