Exposición a contenidos violentos en redes sociales y desenlaces psicológicos en jóvenes de América Latina y el Caribe: revisión sistemática

Observational exposure to violent content on social media constitutes a phenomenon distinct from general platform use and direct cybervictimization. The study was initially restricted to Ecuador, but the scarcity of national evidence led to an expansion of the scope to Latin America and the Caribbean before the search was closed. The objective was to synthesize evidence published between 2021 and September 2026 on exposure to violent content on social media and its psychological, affective, cognitive, or normalization-related outcomes among adolescents and university students in the region. A systematic review was conducted in accordance with PRISMA 2020 and PRISMA-S, with searches in PubMed/MEDLINE, SciELO, and LILACS/BVS, complemented by manual searching. One reviewer screened titles and abstracts, and a second reviewer assessed full-text eligibility, followed by final adjudication; methodological quality was evaluated using Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) tools. Of 1,201 records identified, 874 remained after duplicate removal; 117 full-text reports were assessed, and three studies involving adolescents were included, two from Mexico and one from Costa Rica. One cross-sectional study found an association between interaction with self-harm and suicide content and self-injurious behavior, while two qualitative studies described the continuity of observed violence on social media and processes of normalization and desensitization. No study involving university students met the inclusion criteria. The available regional evidence is scarce and heterogeneous and does not support causal inference; therefore, longitudinal studies are needed to clearly distinguish observational exposure from direct victimization and general social media use