Social Media Use in Adolescence: User Types and Mental Health

Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH)

DOI: 10.13056/acamh.20792
In this podcast, we are joined by Lizzy Winstone, Senior Research Associate in Epidemiology at Bristol Medical School, the University of Bristol.

The focus of this podcast is on the JCPP Advances paper ‘Adolescent social media user types and their mental health and well-being, results from a longitudinal survey of 13 to 14-year-olds in the United Kingdom’ (doi.org/10.1002/jcv2.12071).
Lizzy sets the scene by detailing a summary of the paper and sharing insight into the methodology used for the research.
In previous studies, distinctions are made between active and passive social media. Lizzy explains why her paper suggests that this distinction may be too simplistic and comments on the four classes of social media users identified in her paper – high communicators, moderate communicators, broadcasters, and minimal users – including how each of these different groups behave.
Lizzy then highlights the key findings from the paper and provides further commentary on her finding that moderate social media screen time was beneficial to well-being, in comparison to no use at all.
Lizzy also discusses if there were any gender differences in her research, plus what the implications are of her findings overall for CAMH professionals.