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In 2015, American adolescents aged 13 to 18 years reported using social media 1 hour and 11 minutes a day, 7 days a week. Social media are used for a variety of activities, including sharing information, interacting with peers, and developing a coherent identity. In this review of the research, we examine how social media are intertwined with adolescent development and assess both the costs and benefits of adolescent social media use. We include suggestions for further research and recommendations for clinicians, policy makers, and educators., Competing Interests: POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The authors have indicated they have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2017 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.)

Although studies have shown that depressive symptoms, life satisfaction, and adolescents' online peer victimization are associated, there remain critical gaps in our understanding of these relationships. To address these gaps, the present two-wave panel study (N Time1 = 1840) (1) examines the short-term longitudinal and reciprocal relationships between peer victimization on Facebook, depressive symptoms and life satisfaction during adolescence, and (2) explores the moderating role of adolescents' gender, age, and perceived friend support. Self-report data from 1621 adolescent Facebook users (48 % girls; M Age  = 14.76; SD = 1.41) were used to test our hypotheses. The majority of the sample (92 %) was born in Belgium. Cross-lagged analyses indicated that peer victimization on Facebook marginally predicted decreases in life satisfaction, and life satisfaction predicted decreases in peer victimization on Facebook. However, depressive symptoms were a risk factor for peer victimization on Facebook, rather than an outcome. In addition, support from friends protected adolescents from the harmful outcomes of peer victimization on Facebook. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Although young people's face‐to‐face and digital social interactions have been frequently examined in relation to their psychological well‐being, few studies have considered how day‐to‐day variations in digital social interactions relate to fluctuations in self‐esteem. To fill this gap, this study used a daily diary method over a five‐day period to examine the same‐day and lagged‐day associations between the quantity and quality of social interactions (i.e., face‐to‐face vs. digital) and self‐esteem in a diverse sample of young adults (N = 219; 51% women, 49% men; M age = 21). Additionally, this study also investigated the moderating role of social anxiety on this relation. Over a five‐day period, participants completed a daily diary checklist at the end of each day and reported on their social interactions (i.e., quantity and quality) and self‐esteem for that day. Results showed that the quality of interactions via face‐to‐face settings and text messaging as well as the quantity and quality of interactions via social media were positively associated with self‐esteem. Only the quality of face‐to‐face interactions on the prior day positively predicted self‐esteem on a given day. Social anxiety moderated the same‐day associations between quality of interactions via face‐to‐face and text messaging, and self‐esteem. Findings suggest that only high‐quality face‐to‐face interactions may be associated with longer lasting gains to psychological well‐being. The implications of these exploratory findings for our understanding of the role of emerging technologies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on findings from an exploratory investigation about parents' perceived role of the Facebook Like in sharenting (i.e., sharing about their children on social media) by drawing on the qualitative results of an online survey. Findings show that the majority of participants think that getting a Like on a picture of one's child can encourage a parent to share more about him/her because of two main understandings of this paralinguistic cue: the Like as a received validation of one's parenting, or as a metric of connection with important people, causing emotional reactions in the receivers. Several parents, though, judge the Like as more commonly being important for others, explaining this difference in terms of internal characteristics. This study aims to extend our understanding of the motivations behind sharenting by taking into account the role of the Like in this practice and highlighting how parents position themselves in such an exchange of digital photo-sharing and feedback. As communication does not happen in a vacuum, we advance that research on parents' photo-sharing behavior online may benefit from considering whether and how social media liking can foster and shape interpersonal communication between posters and recipients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a mixed-methods approach to examine the relation between online academic disclosure and academic performance. A multi-ethnic sample of college students ( N = 261; male = 66; female = 195; M age ≈ 22 years) responded to open-ended questions about their Facebook use. Thematic analysis revealed that over 14% of the Facebook wall posts/status updates ( N = 714) contained academic themes; positive states were more frequent than negative and neutral states and students with lower GPAs expressed negative states more often. A path analysis suggested that academic performance may determine college students’ Facebook use, rather than the reverse. Implications for student support services are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Neuroticism was not related to Facebook activity level, or time spent on Facebook. [•] Extraversion was related to Facebook activity level; was not related to Facebook time. [•] Personality characteristics predict different kinds of online self-presentation. [•] Greater neuroticism predicted greater online presentation of the ideal and false self. [•] Lower extraversion predicted greater self-exploratory online presentation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Extant research on youth online content and culture is mostly based on US and Western contexts. Our goal was to examine whether a dominant global online youth culture or whether the local context (for example, language and popular culture) influences youth online content. We compared English language blogs from the US blogosphere, and Czech language blogs from the Czech blogosphere, written by 13- to 17-year-old youth. The last three entries from each blog were selected for content analysis, yielding a sample of 1038 entries. Results showed that English-speaking bloggers presented less personal information, used a text-based style and wrote mainly about their peers and everyday structured life. Czech-speaking bloggers used visuals, and focused on the public scene. Meta-blogging played a significant role in both blogospheres. The pattern of similarities and differences suggested that the blog authors’ physical context likely influenced the particular format or content of their blog entries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is substantial evidence that media multitasking and intense digital media use may be associated with poor psychological well-being among youth. At the same time the evidence about these associations is inconsistent, and it appears that youth characteristics such as social anxiety and narcissism may play a moderating role in the relation between aspects of digital media use and well-being. This study examined media multitasking and intensity of technology use as predictors of affect and self-esteem as well as the moderating role of social anxiety and narcissism in the relation between multitasking, intensity of use and affect and self-esteem. Data were collected via a cross-sectional study of ethnically diverse emerging adults. The results showed that a higher percent of time spent media multitasking predicted lower self-esteem and higher negative affect. Significant interaction effects were found between multitasking and social anxiety on self-esteem and between multitasking and narcissism on positive affect. That is, at high levels of social anxiety, individuals with high levels of multitasking reported higher self-esteem than those with low levels of multitasking. Moreover, at high levels of narcissism those with high levels of multitasking reported increased positive affect when compared to those with low levels of multitasking. Our findings suggest that intense digital media use may be problematic for some youth's psychological well-being, but also beneficial for other youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]