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Social media use and psychological wellbeing of adolescents: A structural equation modeling using UDAYA cohort data

CHANDA MAURYA, International Institute For Population Sciences
Preeti Dhillon, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Himani Sharma, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Pradeep Kumar, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

Abstract: In an online era like today, the relationship between social media and depression among adolescents and young adults is erratic and still continues to be a debatable subject. The study aims to examine the cross-lag relationship between social media usage and depressive symptoms among the adolescent cohort. The study uses data from a cohort (UDAYA) survey. The study applied logistic regression to on depressive symptoms (mild to severe) outcome variables. Further, we build structural equation models to examine the Cross-Lagged relationship between social media and depressive symptoms of adolescent cohort. The adolescents who were frequent social media users had higher adjusted odds of reporting depressive symptoms compared to non-users. The path relationship reveals that social media use at wave-1 [ß=0.22, p<0.001] was positively associated with social media use in wave-2. However, social media use in adolescence (10-19) did not influence depressive symptoms in later age (13-22) and vice versa. The study reveals a significant adverse effect of social media use on depressive symptoms among adolescents at both waves. However, cross lagged relations between social media use and depression could not be established.

Keywords: Age structure, Gender, Structural equation modelling, Longitudinal studies

See paper.

  Presented in Session 4. Emotional Wellbeing of Adolescents and Young People