Social Media and Distraction: An Experience Sampling Study among Adolescents

Abstract

A widespread concern in society is that adolescents experience an increased inability to concentrate and sustain attention because they are continuously distracted by social media. The current experience sampling method (ESM) study examined whether adolescents who use more social media than their peers experience more distraction (between-person association), whether social media use (SMU) and distraction cofluctuate within adolescents (momentary within-person associations), and to what extent this within-person association differs from person to person (person-specific associations). With a sample of 383 adolescents (M age = 14.11), who together completed 35,099 ESM surveys (73% compliance), we found both a positive between-person association (β = .31) and a positive momentary within-person association (β = .12) of SMU with distraction. The momentary within-person association differed from adolescent to adolescent: While SMU and distraction were positively associated among 82.5% of all adolescents, they were not associated among 15.7% of the adolescents, and negatively associated among 1.8% of the adolescents. Additional analyses on the direction of the effect showed that the within-person effect of SMU on subsequent levels of distraction was somewhat stronger (β = .05) than the effect of distraction on subsequent levels of SMU (β = .03).

Explaining variation in adolescents' social media-related distraction: The role of social connectivity and disconnectivity factors

“…The current study showed that social media-related distraction is indeed common among adolescents, with 77% of adolescents experiencing more distraction as they spend more time using social media. We partly replicated a recent ESM study by Siebers et al (2021), which was conducted in November 2019 among the same sample of adolescents, six months before the current study. In comparison to Siebers et al (2021), we found both a higher positive between-person association (β = .48 vs β = .31 in Siebers et al) and a higher within-person association of SMU with (β = .18 vs β = .12 in Siebers et al).…”

“…The current study extends the study of Siebers et al (2021) by examining factors that may explain why adolescents differ in their tendency to become distracted by SMU. Scholars have suggested that a healthy usage of social media is obtained when social connectivity and disconnectivity are properly in balance (Vanden Abeele, 2020).…”

“…However, adolescents differ in their tendency to control their behavior (Li et al, 2019;Willems et al, 2019), including their social media-related behavior (Siebers et al, 2021). Therefore, we hypothesize: H3: Adolescents who use social media self-control strategies less often experience more social media-related distraction than adolescents who use social media selfcontrol strategies more often.…”

“…For instance, a majority of adolescents admit that they are often distracted by social media while doing homework or while being with others (Rideout & Robb, 2018). In addition, a recent experience sampling study by Siebers et al (2021) showed that adolescents felt more distracted during hours when they spent more time using social media. However, media effects theories, such as the differential susceptibility to media effects model assume that the extent of social media-related distraction may differ across adolescents (Valkenburg & Peter, 2013).…”

“…It is only by answering this question that interventions can be tailored to those adolescents who suffer most from social media-related distraction (Rodriguez et al, 2021). As a first step, Siebers et al (2021) investigated whether differences in adolescents' general tendency to experience distraction and general level of SMU could explain the person-specific differences. They found that adolescents who generally spent less time using social media experienced more social media-related distraction than those who spent more time using social media.…”