How do Norwegian adolescents experience the role of social media in relation to mental health and well-being: a qualitative study

Abstract

Background During the last decade, social media has permeated most parts of society. Adolescents are particularly active users of social media, and their use has been suggested as a contributing factor to mental health issues in this group. Quantitative studies have found associations between the frequency and/or duration of social media use and more mental health issues. However, most studies are cross-sectional and the identified associations are weak and of questionable practical significance. The aim of this study was to investigate adolescents’ lived experiences of using social media, focusing on both negative and positive aspects, using a qualitative approach. Qualitative research enables in-depth explorations of the experiences of individuals, nuance quantitative findings, and offer the perspective of adolescents into policies regarding social media use. Methods Experiences and perspectives of 27 adolescents from two senior high schools in Norway were gathered using focus group interviews (mean age 16.8, range 15–18). The data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results According to the participants, social media use catalyse changes to how people communicate and relate to each other (theme 1). Some changes were positive, in terms of facilitating social connectedness, while others were negative, such as people behaving worse than in face-to-face interactions. Further, social media use affected the participants at the individual level (theme 2); positively in terms of a sense of belonging and social support, and negatively in terms of perceived stress, body pressure, and displacing other activities such as sleep and homework. The motivations for using, or not using, social media were multifaceted (theme 3), reflecting the positive and negative aspects of social media in terms of interpersonal and personal consequences. Conclusion Social media was described as an important part of the participants’ everyday life, with both a positive and negative impact on their mental health and well-being. Considering the compelling nature of social media and adolescents’ relatively limited self-regulatory capacities, efforts to modify social media use should avoid relying on self-regulation, while also recognizing the importance of social media as an arena for peer interaction.

Pupils’ Use of Social Media and Its Relation to Mental Health from a School Personnel Perspective: A Preliminary Qualitative Study

“…The study is part of a larger project that aims to better understand the relationship between different aspects of social media use and mental health and well-being among adolescents using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Further information about the project is available from previous publications [30,31].…”

“…The interviews were conducted at the schools during the autumn of 2019. The interview guide (see Supplementary Material S1) was adapted from a piloted interview guide for adolescents [30] and had two main questions:…”

“…They also discussed that exclusion is both more visible on social media and seems to be more prevalent due to the absence of adults. Qualitative studies of adolescents have shown that social media can cause them to feel left out, for example by observing that their friends hang out through their posts on social media [24,30]. Although no studies have explicitly investigated whether exclusion/ostracism is more common online than offline, it has been shown that less adult supervision is associated with more bullying [41], and concerns about the lack of online adult supervision has been expressed by several authors (e.g., [42,43]).…”

“…As in previous publications from the project, the author group endeavored to adhere to the approach put forward by Braun and Clarke [30], and no deviation from the above description was observed during data analysis.…”

A Review of the Relationship Between Social Media Use and Online Prosocial Behavior Among Adolescents

“…More specifically, there seems to be a bias in research attention regarding “bad content” and negative effects of media compared to positive content and positive effects. Recent studies have, however, also focused on the potential positive aspects of SoMe use (de Leeuw and Buijzen, 2016 ; Scott et al, 2019 ; Thomas et al, 2020 ; Hjetland et al, 2021 )—for instance, recognizing how SoMe play a key role in the social lives of adolescents (Hjetland et al, 2021 ).…”