Gender differences in associations between digital media use and psychological well‐being: Evidence from three large datasets

Abstract

Introduction: Adolescents spend an increasing amount of time using digital media, but gender differences in their use and in associations with psychological well-being are unclear. Method: We drew from three large, representative surveys of 13-to 18-year-old adolescents in the U.S. and UK (total N = 221,096) examining digital media use in hours per day and several measures of psychological well-being separately in each of the three datasets. Results: Adolescent girls spent more time on smartphones, social media, texting, general computer use, and online, and boys spent more time gaming and on electronic devices in general. Associations between moderate or heavy digital media use and low psychological well-being/ mental health issues were generally larger for girls than for boys. Light users of digital media were slightly higher in well-being than non-users, with larger differences among boys. Among both genders, heavy users of digital media were often twice as likely as low users to be low in well-being or have mental health issues, including risk factors for suicide. Conclusions: Associations between heavy digital media use and low psychological well-being are larger for adolescent girls than boys.

Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health: A Systematic Review

“…There were three systematic reviews and one thematic analysis that explored the better or worse of using social media among adolescents [20][21][22][23]. In addition, eight were cross-sectional studies and only three were longitudinal studies [24][25][26][27][28][29].The meta-analyses included studies published beyond the last five years in this population.…”

“…Given the evidence from cross-sectional studies, it is not possible to conclude that the use of social networks causes mental health problems. Only three longitudinal studies examined the causal relationship between social media and mental health, which is hard to examine if the mental health problem appeared more pronounced in those who use social media more compared with those who use it less or do not use at all [19,20,24]. Next, despite the fact that the proposed relationship between social media and mental health is complex, a few studies investigated mediating factors that may contribute or exacerbate this relationship.…”

Psychological Well-Being and Youth Autonomy: Comparative Analysis of Spain and Colombia

“…In their study, Maurya and Ojha (2017) identified similar scores among young people from the same country, demonstrating the influence of context on the configuration of the trend experienced by both boys and girls; the slight differences in certain dimensions that can be explained by the different gender approaches, as interpreted by Salleh and Mustaffa (2016) or Xi et al (2018). Other studies have shown that gender affects the level of psychological well-being: it has been shown that women enjoy less psychological well-being than men after adolescence (Akhter, 2015;Glynn et al, 2016;Sun et al, 2016;Twenge and Martin, 2020). These differences, quantifiable by psychometrics, could be derived from cognitive style and coping style.…”

Effects of Covid-19 confinement on the mental health of children and adolescents in Spain

“…This might well be because teenage girls tend to use on-line means of socialization more, give more importance to them than boys do, and they affect their well-being more. Consequently, they are more used to this socializing agent than boys, who use digital media more often for gaming 22 . Nevertheless, con nement does not seem to have a differential impact based on gender in children between 8 and 12 years old.…”