Gender Effects of Social Network Use Among Secondary School Adolescents in Spain: Extremist and Pro-Violence Attitudes

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a questionnaire-based study of adolescents in secondary schools in Almería and Madrid ( n = 1135), Spain. Based on scales developed and tested by Ozer and Bertelsen (2018), we investigate whether social media use correlates with self-reported extremist and pro-violence attitudes. We analyze the results of a moderation analysis on the rates of extremism and pro-violence, as well as illegal acts, in relation to social media use. We find that boys use social media more than girls, and that greater social media use does not correlate with adolescents being more extremist, but rather more pro-violence.