Ninety-five percent of adolescents are now online and 81% of them are using social media sites. Thirty-eight percent of 9-12 year olds have social media accounts, despite the fact that the Children's On-Line Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) prohibits sites from collecting information from consumers under the age of 13 without parental consent. Little is known about whether parents know when or how their children are accessing social technology. Additionally, research is scarce about the health impact of using social technologies (i.e. mobile phones, social media sites, interactive gaming) in the adolescent years, and this is particularly true for the youngest adolescents (aged 10-15). The vast majority of studies focus on older adolescent and emerging adult populations. Hence, there is an urgent need to explore the health implications of early adolescent social technology initiation and subsequent use during this vulnerable age period when susceptibility to deviant peer norms is at its peak. The proposed exploratory R15 study will address NICHD's goal of understanding the effects of emerging technologies and media on adolescents' health outcomes. Because social technology use is not currently queried in national middle school risk behavior surveys, there are no systematic studies to date that isolate the dynamic associations between early adolescent social technology use and psychosocial and behavioral health indicators. This multi-method, multi-informant, longitudinal study involves undergraduate student research interns who will assist in conducting (a) a student survey in schools targeting over 800 5th-8th graders, (b) matched survey of a subsample of parents, and (c) interviews with 30 adolescents that can illuminate survey result patterns of interest to informing interventions.
Our research aims i nclude describing the demographic and contextual factors associated with early social technology initiation and use, examining how early vs. later initiation and use is associated with psychosocial (depressive symptoms, anxiety) and behavioral outcomes (sleep, physical activity, substance use, peer victimization, early sexual activity), and understanding potential moderating roles of parents and peers. Findings from adolescent surveys will guide selection of interview participants, who will be recruited on the basis of heavy social technology use coupled with either high or low parental monitoring. Analyses of interviews will deepen the understanding of how and why the youngest users are on social media and of the nature of peer and parent influences, all to inform the design of a future follow-up prospective longitudinal R15 study to examine longer term health effects in high school. The proposed exploratory study will inform healthcare, school, and family efforts to address how social technology use can promote or hinder psychosocial and behavioral health outcomes.
Although studies published by the American Academy of Pediatrics report that adolescent use of social technologies has introduced such problems as cyberbullying, privacy concerns, Internet addiction, and sleep deprivation, very little is known about specific risks for the youngest adolescents aged 10-15, when social media initiation is likely to occur. We use longitudinal, multi-method, and multi-informant strategies to study the associations between early adolescent psychosocial and behavioral health and early social technology use, as well as the roles of peer norms and monitoring by parents. The results of this exploratory study will inform how policymakers, educators, and pediatricians identify how, why, and when parents and peers play a key factor in moderating psychosocial and behavioral health risks.
