Increase in time spent on social media is associated with modest increase in depression, conduct problems, and episodic heavy drinking

an article by Geir Scott Brunborg and Jasmina Burdzovic Andreas (Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Norway) -ublished in Journal of Adolescence Volume 74 (July 2019)

Abstract

Introduction
Adolescent use of social media has been linked to a range of negative outcomes, but it is still unclear whether the associations are spurious. To address this issue, we examined if within-individual change in time spent on social media was associated with within-individual changes in depression, conduct problems, and episodic heavy drinking in a sample of adolescents using first-differencing models (FD-models).

Methods
A sample of 763 Norwegian adolescents (45.1% boys; mean age 15.22 years, standard deviation 1.44) completed two questionnaires 6-months apart. The associations between changes in time spent on social media and symptoms of depression, conduct problems, and frequency of episodic heavy drinking were estimated using FD-models, a statistical technique that effectively controls for all time-invariant individual factors. We also accounted for three time-variant putative confounders: frequency of sports practice, frequency of unsupervised leisure activities, and peer relationship problems.

Results
Increases in time spent on social media were associated with increases in symptoms of depression (b = 0.13 [95% CI: 0.01, 0.24], p = 0.038), increases in conduct problems (b = 0.07 [95% CI: 0.02, 0.10], p = 0.007), and increases in episodic heavy drinking (b = 0.10 [95% CI: 0.06, 0.15], p < 0.001), after adjusting for changes in the three hypothesized confounders. The effect-sizes for these relationships were, however, quite modest.

Conclusion
Increased time spent on social media was modestly related to increases in depression, conduct problems, as well as frequency of episodic heavy drinking among adolescents.

Hazel’s comment
Looking at a specific adult in my family circle I notice exactly what these authors are talking about. And the effects are not “quite modest”.

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