ACEs, Problematic Social Media Use, and Emotional/Behavioral Dysregulation Among ABCD ^® Study Adolescents

Dramatic increases in adolescent social media use have occurred alongside worsening adolescent mental and behavioral health and associated risk factors, including adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Understanding these relationships is important for mental health nurses working with adversity-impacted adolescents. This study examined the association between ACEs exposure and problematic social media use (PSMU), and the moderating role of emotional and behavioral dysregulation among a diverse sample of young United States' (US) adolescents (10-14 years old). A secondary analysis using mixed-effects linear modeling was used to analyze adolescent and parent self-report data collected from baseline through 3-year follow-up in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD Study^®). After adjusting for socio-demographic covariates, a significant positive association was found between adolescent cumulative ACEs score at 10-12 years and higher PSMU at 12-14 years: relative to adolescents with low (< 2) ACEs, those with high (<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mrow><mml:mo>≥</mml:mo><mml:mtext> </mml:mtext><mml:mn>4</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:math>) ACEs reported higher PSMU (β = 1.5, <i>p</i> < 0.001). Adolescent emotional and behavioral dysregulation did not moderate this association. Findings underscore the importance of ACEs and mental health screening, as well as trauma-informed, developmentally appropriate preventative interventions to promote healthy social media use and reduce risk for PSMU among adversity-impacted adolescents.