Longitudinal Change in Appearance-Related Social Media Consciousness and Depressive Symptoms: A Within-Person Analysis during Early-to-Middle Adolescence
Date
2024-05-24
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Youth and Adolescence
Abstract
Online appearance preoccupation may put adolescents at risk of developing mental health challenges, perhaps especially during early-to-middle adolescence. A random intercept cross-lagged panel model assessed within-person associations between appearance-related social media consciousness and depressive symptoms over three time-points with three months between waves. The sample (n = 1594) included U.S. adolescents aged 11–15 (Mage = 13; 47% girls, 46% boys, 7% another gender; 37% Latine, 33% White, 18% Black, 7% Asian). Within-person increases in appearance-related social media consciousness were associated with subsequent increases in depressive symptoms, but not vice versa. There was no evidence of gender differences and results were robust to controlling for both time on social media and offline self-objectification. Thus, online appearance concerns precede mental health challenges during early and middle adolescence.
Description
The version of record of this article, first published in Journal of Youth and Adolescence, is available online at Publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-024-01998-5. © The Author(s) 2024
Open Access
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords
adolescence, social media, body image, depressive symptoms, self-objectification, online appearance concerns
Citation
Maheux, A.J., Laurenceau, JP., Roberts, S.R. et al. Longitudinal Change in Appearance-Related Social Media Consciousness and Depressive Symptoms: A Within-Person Analysis during Early-to-Middle Adolescence. J. Youth Adolescence (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-024-01998-5