Adolescents’ Online Coping: When Less Is More but None Is Worse

Abstract

Mobile technologies are omnipresent across adolescent life and require better characterization of their potential benefits. Adolescents also experience high rates of daily stress so that investigating youths’ technology use in relation to their stress response is of practical importance. We employed experience sampling data from a subset of 115 youths ( n = 1,241 time points) who reported on their technology-based coping and assessed how these related to emotion change throughout the day and controlled for important covariates. Models testing for the benefits of moderate use (relative to no or heavy use; i.e., Goldilocks effect) showed a clear pattern of positive effects of moderate coping online, particularly in relation to support seeking and self-distraction. Moderate online coping was adaptive and often fostered declines in negative emotion.

Effects of COVID-19 on Adolescent Mental Health and Internet Use by Ethnicity and Gender: A Mixed-Method Study

“…For example, we found adolescents used the internet in a positive way such as by surfing social media, keeping up to date with current information, continuing their (distance) education, and having fun. This extends other recent research showing that adolescents stand to benefit from using the internet for connecting with support systems, discovering accurate information, and even taking a break from the stressors of everyday life [ 76 ]. However, participants also mentioned how the internet negatively affects them by being exposed to sad news for example.…”

Trajectories of Perceived Technological Impairment and Psychological Distress in Adolescents

“…For example, it may be useful to test when digital technology use may be associated with avoidant coping (Panova & Lleras, 2016 ), which in turn may result in daily life impairments. It may also be fruitful to examine specific digital technology behaviors that individuals may turn to for coping, such as turning to videos or advice forums for help to cope (Weinstein et al, 2021 ), as well as the degree to which digital technology is used to cope, as using to technology to cope at moderate levels may be more effective than heavy levels or not at all (Modecki et al, 2022 ).…”

– The IAFOR Conference on Educational Research and Innovation: 2022 Official Conference Proceedings

“…As research indicates, individuals with a high preference for aloneness, gravitate to screens in order to reduce symptoms of stress (Leung, 2015), indicating that dispositions, such as introversion and extraversion may inform the use of the use of devices during breaks. This raises the point about balance, and the need for students to have a choice, especially considering the fact that low levels of access to technology can cause anxiety (Dienlin & Johannes, 2020) whereas moderate access could enable students to cope better with life stressors (Cheever et al, 2014) (Modecki, 2021). This is an important point to remember before instituting change.…”

“…According to Dienlin & Johannes (2020), both low and excessive use are related to decreased well-being, whereas moderate use is related to increased well-being. Studies highlight the benefit of moderate use for stress reduction, in particular, especially when students use online programs or apps for coping with life stressors, and with managing negative emotions (Modecki, 2021).…”

“…One-to-one laptop and ipad based programs have become a common feature in international school environments, and their use has generated a range of perspectives concerning the potential benefits and drawbacks. Research indicates that the moderate use of these devices can have a positive impact on student learning (Lei and Zhao, 2008), social connection (Charmaraman, 2017), anxiety reduction (George and Odgers, 2015), and stress reduction (Modecki, 2021), which contrasts with research that highlights the negative impacts (Kokkinaki, 2010) (Twenge, 2020a). Some of the concerns raised regarding the use of screenbased devices with younger students include the impact on cognition, sleep, and levels of physical activity (Merga, 2015), and a Danish study, on the use of ipads during break-times, demonstrated that children are less inclined to interact with others when they are on their ipads (Schilhab, 2017).…”