Citation

Radovic A, Gmelin T, Stein BD, Miller E. J. Adolesc. 2016; 55: 5-15.

Affiliation

Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, Oakland Medical Building, 3420 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, United States; Department of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, United States. Electronic address: Elizabeth.miller@chp.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.12.002

PMID

27997851

Abstract

This qualitative study examined descriptions of social media use among 23 adolescents (18 female, 5 male) who were diagnosed with depression to explore how social media use may influence and be influenced by psychological distress. Adolescents described both positive and negative use of social media. Positive use included searching for positive content (i.e. for entertainment, humor, content creation) or for social connection. Negative use included sharing risky behaviors, cyberbullying, and for making self-denigrating comparisons with others. Adolescents described three types of use in further detail including "oversharing" (sharing updates at a high frequency or too much personal information), "stressed posting" (sharing negative updates with a social network), and encountering "triggering posts." In the context of treatment, these adolescents shifted their social media use patterns from what they perceived as negative to more positive use. Implications for clinicians counseling depressed adolescents on social media use are discussed.

Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en