Applying a gendered lens to the issue of adolescent social media use and well-being by exploring salient susceptibilities and alternative within-person processes

Why does research find that girls demonstrate stronger, more negative associations between social media use and well-being compared to boys? In this study we use intensive longitudinal data collected from N = 97 adolescents living in the United States and a Dynamic Structural Equation Modeling framework to apply a gendered lens to more critically examine gender differences in the association between social media use and well-being. Overall, we found limited evidence that social media use was related to well-being, or that gendered facets of adolescents’ social context moderated these associations. However, we did find that two commonly gendered facets of adolescents’ social media experiences, frequency of use and unwanted exposure to sexually explicit content, were both negatively associated with the stability of adolescents’ sense of purpose. This finding points to alternative within-person processes, rather than supporting a direct causal relationship between social media use and well-being, as social media use and experiences may be related to the stability of adolescents’ well-being over time.