Beyens, Ine, et al. “The Effect of Social Media on Well-Being Differs from Adolescent to Adolescent.” Scientific Reports, vol. 10, no. 1, 2020. Web.
Beyens et al’s. article investigates the relationship between social media use and adolescents’ well-being across a particular time. This study conducts a rigorous assessment of 2155 real participants and reveals an association between the two variables. While previous empirical studies focused on the effects across sub-populations of adolescents, this study sought to assess the individual effects on each adolescent.
The authors of this article are lecturers at the University of Amsterdam, a credible academic institution. This source is current and was published in July 2020. The source is useful as it leverages primary data for adolescents collected in the Netherlands to address an issue in contention and provide valuable insights. The intended audience for the article is caretakers, parents, and teachers for teenagers.
This empirical study influenced my stance when writing the article as I realized that social media promotes the well-being of adolescents contrary to popular beliefs. If social media has a positive impact on adolescents, then it should have a positive impact on teenagers, although further study could be needed to confirm the correlation.
Ivie, Elizabeth J., et al. “A Meta-Analysis of the Association Between Adolescent Social Media Use and Depressive Symptoms.” Journal of Affective Disorders, vol. 275, 2020, pp. 165-174. Web.
Ivie et al. conducted a rigorous meta-analysis of the previous studies to find the association between social media use and depressive symptoms in young people aged between 11 and 18. The researchers analyzed various sources such as Web of Science and PubMed and found a slightly significant relationship between the variables. The researchers also found a large variation among the analyzed study results.
This was the only study that conducted a meta-analysis focused on adolescents. The study was also particularly useful as it found a moderating age for its sample. Unlike other studies, which had a very restricted age, this study had a modest effect on age. The study was conducted by professors of the Department of Psychology at the University of Oregon, Eugene.
This study informed me that research on the association between social media use and teenage depression is inconclusive. This shows that other moderators could affect the observation, such as age, as shown by Viner et al. The study guided me to understand that social media usage is different, and some are more powerful than others.
Orben, Amy. “Teenagers, Screens and Social Media: A Narrative Review of Reviews and Key Studies.” Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, vol. 55, no. 4. 2020, pp. 407–414. Web.
Orben’s article researches the current literature on increasing digital use by adolescents and its impacts on their well-being. Upon completing the analysis, Orben provides possible future recommendations and discussions regarding the topic. The author proposes that future research should focus on transparency, investigating the size of the effects of social media use and how individuals are differently affected.
The recommendations provided in this article relate to the research conducted by Beyens et al. Thus, this source is useful as it reviews most of the previous literature and guides future studies to fields where gaps have been identified. The author of this article is credible, being a professor at the University of Cambridge, UK, at the time of writing.
This research informed me that the current literature on the topic might be limited as it relies on cross-sectional analysis, which is often low quality. The study also identifies a gap in the literature where a direct link between social media use and well being of teenagers is yet to be identified.
Valkenburg, Patti M., et al. “Social Media Use and Its Impact on Adolescent Mental Health: An Umbrella Review of the Evidence.” Current Opinion in Psychology, vol. 44, no. 44. 2021, pp. 58-68. Web.
Like Orben’s article, Valkenburg et al. conduct an umbrella review to find characteristics of previous literature on the impacts of social media use on adolescents’ mental health. The researchers, however, use more recent reviews dated between 2019 and July 2021 as they appear on Google Scholar. After analyzing 25 recent reviews, the authors figured out that the impact on the well-being of adolescents is regularly changing; thus, studies need to be conducted regularly.
This source is useful for the study topic as it has synchronized 25 of the most useful and recent articles. Valkenburg and Beyens are professors at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam, while Meier is a professor at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg, at the School of Business. The targeted audience for this article is future researchers in the field.
This source changed my stance on the previous studies by revealing that high-level evidence to link social media use and the well-being of adolescents is lacking. The study reveals that the disagreements in research show that the effect on each teenager is unique based on their social context. The interesting revelation from this article is that it advocates for a person-specific approach to social media effects.
Viner, Russell M., et al. “Roles of Cyberbullying, Sleep, and Physical Activity in Mediating the Effects of Social Media Use on Mental Health and Well-Being Among Young People in England: A Secondary Analysis of Longitudinal Data.” The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, vol. 3, no. 10. 2019, pp. 685–696. Web.
Viner et al. explore the emerging concern of an association between extended social media use and the mental well-being of young people. The authors investigate this relationship using a secondary analysis of the publicly available longitudinal data. The age of the above 12,000 teenagers is between 13 and 16. Mental health effects for girls are related to lack of sleep and cyberbullying, while for boys, it is operative.
This study received no funding from external sources, and one of the authors, Professor Viner, declared a conflict of interest with being the president of the Royal College of Paediatrics & Child Health. All the contributing authors are experts, all having achieved doctorate credentials.
This study influenced my views about the impacts of social media, where I learned that they could be skewed based on various demographics, such as gender. The study provided a detailed analysis of previous research on the topic and revealed that over 90% of UK teenagers are frequent social media users.