Sunday, December 22, 2024
12/22/2024
Project Summary The sharp increase in mental health symptoms among adolescents has triggered alarm regarding possible sources for this increase, with much public concern focused on the high consumption of social media by youth. Although numerous studies have examined linkages between adolescent social media use and mental health outcomes, much of this research uses self-report assessments and cross-sectional designs, which are limited by inaccuracy and inability to determine temporality in associations. Moreover, less research attention is dedicated to the early adolescent period (ages 10–12). This developmental period marks the first entry into the digital world for many youth and is a critical window during which to understand the effects of social media. Body image concerns is an element of mental health that is especially relevant for social media use, and early adolescents are developmentally at risk for negative body image perceptions and subsequent mental health challenges. This study will examine how early adolescents use social media with a focus on how this use relates to body image concerns, as well as how visual attention biases to highly visual self-focused digital content relates to both social media use and body image concerns. We will also examine the role that parents play in these associations. Parents are known sources of influence on adolescents’ body image concerns and can also shape how adolescents select, interact with, and interpret social media content. For example, a parent who demonstrates visual attention biases to appearance-oriented stimuli may intergenerationally transmit these biases to their adolescent. This longitudinal study will examine an early adolescent sample (N = 200) at two time points: first, when adolescents are entering the 6th grade, and second, when adolescents are entering the 7th grade. Adolescents and their parents will complete measures of their social media experiences, as well as their body image concerns, at both time points. Self-reports will be supplemented with objective measures of adolescent social media use via a) recordings of smartphone app usage, and b) recordings of accounts followed on major social media platforms, with public accounts coded for appearance-oriented content. Adolescents and their parents will also complete an eye-tracking task assessing self-focused visual attention during a video chatting task. By collecting these data over time, we can examine how body image concerns and visual attention to digital stimuli may change in concert with changes in social media use, with a special focus on appearance-oriented social media use. Specifically, we can examine bidirectional associations between early adolescent social media use, visual attention biases to self-focused digital content, and body image concerns, with an additional focus on how parent body image concerns and self-focused visual attention biases may predict these attitudes and behaviors. The information gained can inform prevention and intervention efforts targeting unhealthy social media use during adolescence, such as by testing parents as a source of influence and identifying visual attention biases as a risk factor.
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