Why is it that social media use makes some adolescents feel happy while leaving others feeling blue? University of Amsterdam-CcaM researchers Patti Valkenburg, Ine Beyens, Loes Pouwels and Irene van Driel together with Loes Keijsers of Tilburg University- Developmental Psychology- have formed an interdisciplinary collaboration to address this question.

Individual differences in the effects of social media use

The team is embarking on a collaborative journey to unravel individual differences in the effects of social media use on various aspects of well-being of Dutch youth. The person-specific paradigm that will be used in this project will help us to reveal which mechanisms hold for which individual adolescent across specific time points and contexts.

Methods

The current project will incorporate theoretical approaches from the fields of communication science and developmental psychology. The project team will collect intensive longitudinal data, including surveys and experience sampling. Advanced statistical modelling techniques will be used to analyze the short- and long-term effects of social media use on wellbeing.

Working title

The working title of this research collaboration is Adolescents, Wellbeing & Social Media, and may be referred to as Project AWeSome to emphasize the positive impact this project aims to have on adolescents’ wellbeing.

Update: first publication!

Do social media affect adolescents’ wellbeing? In the first publication the projectteam shows that the effect differs from adolescent to adolescent. Read publication…

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