The Impact of Internet and Social Media Use on Well-Being: A Longitudinal Analysis of Adolescents Across Nine Years

Abstract

The present research examines the longitudinal average impact of frequency of use of Internet and social networking sites (SNS) on subjective well-being of adolescents in Germany. Based on five-wave panel data that cover a period of nine years, we disentangle between-person and within-person effects of media use on depressive symptomatology and life satisfaction as indicators of subjective well-being. Additionally, we control for confounders such as TV use, self-esteem, and satisfaction with friends. We found that frequency of Internet use in general and use of SNS in particular is not substantially related subjective well-being. The explanatory power of general Internet use or SNS use to predict between-person differences or within-person change in subjective well-being is close to zero. TV use, a potentially confounding variable, is negatively related to satisfaction with life, but it does not affect depressive symptomatology. However, this effect is too small to be of practical relevance.

A Systematic Review of Internet Communication Technology Use by Youth in Foster Care

“…Youth focus on relationships and the ability to control their narratives and make decisions about their own lives. The view of foster youth is supported by a growing body of longitudinal studies suggest no relationship between negative mental health outcomes and ICT use for adolescents (Orben & Przybylski, 2019a, 2019bSchemer, Masur, Geiß, Müller, & Schäfer, 2020). Although additional research is needed related to ICT use by foster youth in particular, it is noteworthy that other marginalized youth, including homeless youth (Barman-Adhikari, Bowen, Bender, Brown, & Rice, 2016;Rice & Barman-Adhikari, 2014) and LGBTQ youth (McInroy, McCloskey, Craig, & Eaton, 2019) are found to benefit relationally, and in other domains, from social media and other ICTs.…”

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

“…For instance, Jensen et al (30) found that baseline frequency of social media use did not predict increased daily depressive symptoms at 1-to 2-year followup in a demographically representative sample of adolescents. More prolonged studies spanning 8 or 9 years have further corroborated the view that frequency of social media use does not longitudinally predict depressive symptoms in adolescents even when studied across developmental periods from adolescence to young adulthood (31,32). Further, using a longitudinal panel design on a sample of American adults, Hampton (33) showed that social media use was in fact associated with reduced psychological distress due to the social opportunities afforded by social networking sites.…”

Social media and mental health: Reviewing effects on eudaimonic well-being

“…We emphasize that this evidence is overwhelmingly based on self-reports and refers to between-person correlations, not causation. Based on a recent systematic review (Course-Choi & Hammond, 2021) and additional research, we also note that longitudinal panel studies to date find little to no evidence for positive or negative long-term effects of social media screen time on mental health in general (Orben et al, 2019;Schemer et al, 2020; but see Shakya & Christakis, 2017). However, some longitudinal evidence for negative effects on body image among adolescents exists (Course-Choi & Hammond, 2021).…”