Social media use is nearly universal among US-based teens. How do daily interactions with social apps influence adolescents’ affective well-being? Survey self-reports (n = 568) portray social media use as predominantly positive. Exploratory principal component analysis further indicates that positive and negative emotions form orthogonal response components. In-depth interviews with a sub-sample of youth (n = 26), selected for maximum variation, reveal that affect experiences can be organized across four functional dimensions. Relational interactions contribute to both closeness and disconnection; self-expression facilitates affirmation alongside concern about others’ judgments; interest-driven exploration confers inspiration and distress; and browsing leads to entertainment and boredom, as well as admiration and envy. All interviewees describe positive and negative affect experiences across multiple dimensions. Analyses suggest the relationship between social technology usage and well-being—whether enhanced or degraded—is not confined to an “either/or” framework: the emotional see-saw of social media use is weighted by both positive and negative influences.

Based on a thematic content analysis of 2000 anonymous posts to the website AThinLine.org , this article explores adolescents’ personal accounts of digital stress. Six kinds of digital stressors that engender two distinctive types of digital stress are identified. Type 1 stressors—“mean and harassing personal attacks,” “public shaming and humiliation,” and “impersonation”—reflect the migration of common forms of relational hostility onto the online space and echo discussions of harassment, drama, and bullying. Type 2 stressors stem from adolescents’ use of digital technologies in the service of seeking relational connection. These lesser-discussed Type 2 stressors—“feeling smothered,” “pressure to comply with requests for access,” and “breaking and entering into digital accounts and devices”—transpire in the context of adolescents’ attempts to form and maintain intimacy or close connections with others.

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Youth well-being, social connectedness, and personality traits, such as empathy and narcissism, are at the crux of concerns often raised about the impacts of digital life. Understanding known impacts, and research gaps, in these areas is an important first step toward supporting media use that contributes positively to youth's happiness, life satisfaction, and prosocial attitudes and behaviors. By examining existing work addressing these issues across domains, we found that a complex interplay of individual factors, type of digital media engagement, and experiences in media contexts informs outcomes related to well-being, social connectedness, empathy, and narcissism. We argue that further research is needed to uncover how, where, when, and for whom digital media practices support positive well-being and social connectedness outcomes. Specifically, research needs to move beyond correlational studies to uncover causal connections between traits like narcissism and media use. Longitudinal studies are also needed to explore patterns of media use over time and related impacts. Further research is needed to explore how specific technologies can be designed to support positive well-being, social outcomes, and prosocial personality traits. Finally, research is needed regarding parenting, educational practices, and policies that support positive digital media use and related outcomes. Although existing research suggests that digital life has mixed potentials and effects for well-being, social connectedness, empathy, and narcissism, we provide recommendations for clinicians, policy makers, and educators in partnering with caregivers and youth to support media use that promotes positive outcomes in these areas.

The purpose of this article is to review and critique the published literature examining the relationships between religion/spirituality and caregiver well-being and to provide directions for future research. A systematic search was conducted using bibliographic databases, reference sections of articles, and by contacting experts in the field. Articles were reviewed for measurement, theoretical, and design limitations. Eighty-three studies were retrieved. Research on religion/spirituality and caregiver well-being is a burgeoning area of investigation; 37% of the articles were published in the last five years. Evidence for the effects of religion/spirituality were unclear; the preponderance (n = 71, 86%) of studies found no or a mixed association (i.e., a combination of positive, negative, or non-significant results) between religion/spirituality and well-being. These ambiguous results are a reflection of the multidimensionality of religion/spirituality and the diversity of well-being outcomes examined. They also partially reflect the frequent use of unrefined measures of religion/spirituality and of atheoretical approaches to studying this topic. Investigators have a fairly large number of studies on religion/spirituality and caregiver well-being on which to build. Future studies should be theory driven and utilize psychometrically sound measures of religion/spirituality. Suggestions are provided to help guide future work.