Journal Article
Social media use and adolescent mental health: findings from the UK Millennium Cohort Study
Authors
Publication date
Dec 2018
Summary
Background:
Evidence suggests social media use is associated with mental health in young people but underlying processes are not well understood. This paper i) assesses whether social media use is associated with adolescents' depressive symptoms, and ii) investigates multiple potential explanatory pathways via online harassment, sleep, self-esteem and body image.
Methods:
We used population based data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study on 10,904 14 year olds. Multivariate regression and path models were used to examine associations between social media use and depressive symptoms.
Findings:
The magnitude of association between social media use and depressive symptoms was larger for girls than for boys. Compared with 1–3 h of daily use: 3 to <5 h 26% increase in scores vs 21%; ≥5 h 50% vs 35% for girls and boys respectively. Greater social media use related to online harassment, poor sleep, low self-esteem and poor body image; in turn these related to higher depressive symptom scores. Multiple potential intervening pathways were apparent, for example: greater hours social media use related to body weight dissatisfaction (≥5 h 31% more likely to be dissatisfied), which in turn linked to depressive symptom scores directly (body dissatisfaction 15% higher depressive symptom scores) and indirectly via self-esteem.
Interpretation:
Our findings highlight the potential pitfalls of lengthy social media use for young people's mental health. Findings are highly relevant for the development of guidelines for the safe use of social media and calls on industry to more tightly regulate hours of social media use.
Published in
EClinicalMedicine
Volume and page numbers
6 , 59 -68
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2018.12.005
ISSN
16
Subjects
Information And Communication Technologies, Psychology, Time Use, Young People, Well Being, Health, and Social Behaviour
Notes
Open Access; Under a Creative Commons license
Related publications
-
Depression in girls linked to higher use of social media
Yvonne Kelly, Afshin Zilanawala, Cara L. Booker, et al.
-
Worry less about children's screen use, parents told
Yvonne Kelly, Afshin Zilanawala, Cara L. Booker, et al.
#525450