Social Media Use and Depressive Symptoms—A Longitudinal Study from Early to Late Adolescence

Abstract

An increasing number of studies have addressed how adolescents’ social media use is associated with depressive symptoms. However, few studies have examined whether these links occur longitudinally across adolescence when examined at the individual level of development. This study investigated the within-person effects between active social media use and depressive symptoms using a five-wave longitudinal dataset gathered from 2891 Finnish adolescents (42.7% male, age range 13–19 years). Sensitivity analysis was conducted, adjusting for gender and family financial status. The results indicate that depressive symptoms predicted small increases in active social media use during both early and late adolescence, whereas no evidence of the reverse relationship was found. Yet, the associations were very small, statistically weak, and somewhat inconsistent over time. The results provide support for the growing notion that the previously reported direct links between social media use and depressive symptoms might be exaggerated. Based on these findings, we suggest that the impact of social media on adolescents’ well-being should be approached through methodological assumptions that focus on individual-level development.

Lessons learned on student engagement from the nature of pervasive socio‐digital interests and related network participation of adolescents

“…One must not shut out the possibility of a sort of dynamic of escapism either (Calleja, 2010; Hirschman, 1982), as in some cases the individuals in this study brought up difficult socioemotional situations (breakup or tragic death of a relative), not to mention the apparently low sociometric status of some (indicating loneliness), that might affect the intensity of their SDP. There is, in fact, recent evidence suggesting that depressive symptoms might lead to increased social media use but not the other way round (Puukko, Hietajärvi, Maksniemi, Alho, & Salmela‐Aro, 2020).…”

Does Social Media Use Increase Depressive Symptoms? A Reverse Causation Perspective

“…Similarly, Raudsepp and Kais's ( 35 ) 2-year study of adolescent girls revealed that baseline levels of depressive symptoms predicted problematic social media use, whereas prior social media use did not predict depressive symptoms. Examining the within-person effects of depressive symptoms on increased social media use over 6 years during early and late adolescence, Puukko et al ( 36 ) found that depressive symptoms predicted increases in social media use for both boys and girls. Conversely, social media use was not found to predict depressive symptoms.…”

The Associations of Active and Passive Social Media Use With Well-being: A Critical Scoping Review

“…In addition to the diversification of study designs, another notable development in (social) media effects research is that within-person methods of analysis are gaining prominence, for example as applied in random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (Puukko et al, 2020) and multi-level modeling (Beyens et al, 2020). Studies that focus on withinperson effects investigate to what extent ASMU and PSMU lead to increases (or decreases) in well-being within a person compared to this person's average well-being (Nesselroade, 1991, p. 229).…”

“…During the coding, we discovered that several operationalizations consisted of a mix of public and private items to measure ASMU and PSMU (Aalbers et al, 2019;Beyens et al, 2020;Puukko et al, 2020;Thorisdottir et al, 2019;Yang, 2020). In subsequent sections, we investigated these studies as a separate category, named mixed ASMU or PSMU.…”

“…Finally, when coding the items, we discovered that five studies mixed up active SMU with interactive SMU (Faelens et al, 2019;Frison & Eggermont, 2020;Macrynikola & Miranda, 2019;Puukko et al, 2020;Thorisdottir et al, 2019). These latter studies aimed to measure ASMU but included items asking respondents how often they chatted on SM.…”