Trajectories of Digital Flourishing in Adolescence: The Predictive Roles of the Developmental Changes and Digital Divide Factors

Digital flourishing refers to the positive perceptions of digital communication use in five dimensions: connectedness, positive social comparison, authentic self-presentation, civil participation, and self-control. This three-wave panel study among 1081 Slovenian adolescents (Mage = 15.34 years, 53.8% boys, 80.7% ethnic majority) explored the trajectories of their digital flourishing dimensions over 1 year (2021–2022). Latent class growth analysis identified two classes. Adolescents in the first class reported high levels of digital flourishing, which remained stable over time, whereas those in the second class reported low levels of digital flourishing with decreased self-control over time. Autonomy-supportive restrictive, autonomy-supportive active, and controlling active parental mediation styles, together with high parental digital skills, predicted adolescents\u27 belongingness to the (more digitally flourishing) first class

Social Media Use and Offline Interpersonal Outcomes during Youth: A Systematic Literature Review

status: Published onlin

Introducing the Social Media Literacy (SMILE) model with the case of the positivity bias on social media

status: Published onlin

Preprint - The Within-Person Relations between Adolescents’ Social Media Literacy, Participation in the Positivity Bias and Self-Esteem

Unauthentic social media self-presentation practices relate to lower self-esteem, yet research replicating these findings at the within-person level is lacking. By means of a three-wave longitudinal survey (N=1032), the present study addresses this gap by examining the reciprocal within-person relations between participating in the social media positivity bias and self-esteem over a four month time interval among adolescents. Furthermore, the role of social media literacy was explored in informing adolescents’ positivity bias participation. We found no support for within-person associations between participation in the positivity bias and self-esteem. Positive within-person associations did occur between cognitive social media literacy and participation in the positivity bias, which was in the opposite direction of what was expected. Interestingly, on the between-person level, affective social media literacy related negatively to participation in the positivity bias and positively to self-esteem. The results are discussed in light of peer dynamics characterizing social media behaviors

Preprint - Different Interactions with Appearance-Focused Social Media Content and Adolescents’ Body Dissatisfaction: A Within-Person Perspective

Social media use has often been linked to adolescents’ body dissatisfaction, but longitudinal investigations of this relation are scarce. This three-wave panel study among N = 1,032 adolescents contributes to the existing literature by testing the within-person relations between different interactions with appearance-focused social media content (i.e., exposure, liking, positively commenting and posting) and adolescents’ body dissatisfaction, measured with a current versus ideal size discrepancy figure rating scale. The results of RI-CLPM’s showed that increased posting of appearance-focused content predicted decreased body dissatisfaction four months later. Yet, this finding was not consistent across both time intervals. In addition, increased exposure predicted decreased body dissatisfaction, yet only among boys. Liking and positively commenting did not predict adolescents’ body dissatisfaction over time. These results indicate a self-affirming role of posting self-related appearance content and highlight boys’ positive agency over their social media use and body image