About this paper symposium

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Panel information
Panel 24. Technology, Media & Child Development

Paper #1
Adolescents’ Objective Smartphone Use and Perceived Smartphone Addiction
Author information	Role
Ting Xu, University of Minnesota	Presenting author
Abstract
Smartphones are ubiquitous in adolescents’ lives, with 95% of 13-17 year-olds having access and 38% reporting excessive use (Pew Research Center, 2023; Pew Research Center, 2024). This has led to growing concerns about smartphone addiction among parents, educators, and policymakers (Lee et al., 2018; Olson et al., 2022). Adolescents too are aware of these risks and can perceive themselves as addicted to smartphones (Cocoradă et al., 2018; Radovic et al., 2017). Research has linked smartphone addiction to worse mental health, physical health, and academic performance (Abd Rashid, 2020; Elhai et al., 2017; Parlak et al., 2023). Correlates of smartphone addiction include duration and frequency of smartphone use (Lin et al., 2015; Noë et al., 2019). However, these links are predominantly based on analysis of adolescents’ self-reports of their smartphone use, which are often not very accurate and reliable indicators of actual use patterns (Parry et al., 2021). To address this gap, our study uses high- intensity data collected directly from adolescents’ smartphones to objectively measure use patterns and test their associations with perceived addiction. Smartphone data were collected continuously for up to 6 months from 131 adolescents aged 13-17 years recruited from across the United States (Mage = 15.59, SD = 1.49; 48.09% female; 54.20% White, 16.03% Multiracial, 13.74% African American, 7.63% Asian, 6.87% Hispanic/Latino). Our analysis focuses on 5,564 days of complete smartphone data (M = 42.5 days/person, range = 1-148) obtained alongside adolescents’ completion of up to 12 biweekly surveys about their perceived smartphone addiction (i.e., whether they felt addicted to their phone). Smartphone use was quantified using three metrics: total daily use duration, daily session length (i.e., duration of each session from screen on to screen off), and frequency of app switches (i.e., switching from one app to another). On average, adolescents’ total daily use duration is 5 hours and 6 minutes per day (SD = 269 minutes; range: 0-1440), with daily session lengths of 77.67 minutes (SD = 70.58; range = 0-1773) and daily app switches frequency of 146.3 switches (SD = 123.9; range = 0-1241). On average, adolescents perceived themselves as being addicted to their smartphones 33.77% (SD = 42.78%; range = 0-100%) of the time. Preliminary analysis of between-person differences indicated that higher frequency of averaged daily app switching was associated with higher level of perceived smartphone addiction (r = 0.18, p = 0.04). However, contrary to expectations, neither averaged total daily use duration (r = 0.14, p = 0.10) nor averaged daily session length (r = 0.02, p = 0.80) were correlated differences in level of perceived smartphone addiction. The next step is to use multilevel modeling to test the associations between the objective smartphone use metrics and perceived smartphone addiction at both within- and between-person levels. Study findings will contribute to the understanding about the relationships between objective smartphone use metrics and subjective experiences with smartphones and identify the behavioral indicators of smartphone addiction among adolescents.

Paper #2
Social media usage consistency and its relationship with problematic social media use and adolescent well-being
Author information	Role
Yuning Liu, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health	Presenting author
Abstract
Despite compelling studies, the relationship between social media use and adolescent well-being remains debated (High et al., 2023; Marciano et al., 2023). Most research has concentrated on average measures such as screen time, frequency, or app-specific use time (Beyens et al., 2020; Valkenburg et al., 2022; Vaid et al., 2024). However, how the consistency of different social media platforms is associated with well-being is still an open question. This study addresses this gap by quantifying the consistency of app-specific social media use through different metrics and investigating its relationship with problematic social media use, positive and negative emotions, and psychological well-being. We hypothesize that individuals with consistent social media app usage are likely to experience higher levels of social media problematic use and decreased well-being at the between-person level. This relationship is moderated by the type of social media app, and it might be stronger among consistent users of video-based platforms like TikTok, due to the highly engaging content on these platforms. The study engaged 374 Swiss high school students (mean age=15.71, SD=0.82; 235 females, 62.8%) in a 14-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in March 2022. Participants completed a baseline survey and responded to daily surveys of social media problematic use and well-being using the Avicenna app. They also submitted daily screenshots of the smartphone Settings page detailing their app-specific screen time, number of activations and notifications, which were processed with a Tesseract OCR-based text-to-image pipeline that achieved 96% accuracy (Liu et al., 2024) and grouped into individual Appnomes. Starting from Appnomes, we identified we elaborated two indices of consistency: the proportion of days that the user sticks with the most used app across the study period (Daily App Consistency), and the proportion of total screen time dedicated to the most used app (Screentime Consistency). Regression analyses were employed to examine the links between these consistency measures, social media, and well-being, and how these relationships are moderated by the type of app predominantly used (text, image, or video-based). Among the participants, 28% consistently used a single social media app during the study; of these, 51% predominantly used a video-based app like TikTok, and 30% used a text-based app like WhatsApp. Higher consistency in app usage—using one app most across observed days—was associated with increased negative emotions (β=0.22, SE=0.08), higher addiction scores (β=0.22, SE=0.08), and lower self-reported meaning in life (β=-0.18, SE=0.08), after adjusting for age, gender, and social network size. Compared to those favoring text-based apps, individuals with higher consistency levels for video-based social media apps exhibited significantly lower levels of positive emotion (β=-0.80, SE=0.36) and psychological well-being (β=-0.77, SE=0.36). In contrast, the screen time consistency shows no significant links to problematic social media use or well-being outcomes. Discussion: Our study highlights a previously overlooked aspect of social media research: social media use consistency (Johannes et al., 2024). We are developing within-level measures to explore how variations (or lack thereof) in app use relate to social media addiction and psychological well-being.

Paper #3
The Problematic Media Use Measure: Establishing Clinical Cut-offs & Evaluating Longitudinal Associations in the ABCD Study
Author information	Role
Kylie Woodman, UCSB, United States	Presenting author
Abstract
INTRODUCTION. The rapidly evolving media landscape necessitates early attention to dysregulated digital media use in children. The Problematic Media Use Measure-Short Form (PMUM-SF; Domoff et al., 2019), a validated parent report tool, assesses problematic media use (PMU) in children and adolescents by reflecting the nine criteria proposed for Internet Gaming Disorder (APA, 2013). Previous research using the PMUM has linked PMU to social-emotional problems in early to middle childhood (Coyne et al., 2024). As efforts move toward PMU prevention, it is crucial to evaluate the PMUM's predictive utility and its relationship with psychopathology and child wellbeing indicators. This study aims to refine the PMUM-SF by establishing clinical cutoff scores and exploring its relationship with clinical symptoms and functioning, including depression, anxiety, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and academic performance. STUDY POPULATION. Data from 6,859 adolescents who participated in the 2-year (ages 11-12) and 3-year (ages 12-13) follow-ups of the ABCD study, representing 12 United States locations. The sample consisted of 52% male and 48% female participants and was a representative sub-sample of the ABCD population in terms of family income, race, ethnicity, and education. METHODS. We validated the PMUM through Item Response Theory (IRT), Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was conducted against four criteria: 1) Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach & Ruffle, 2000; Clark et al., 2021) symptoms of Depression, 2) Anxiety, 3) ADHD, and 4) drop in school grades. Additionally, a cross-lagged panel model was used to analyze changes in clinical cut-off scores and associated risk factors from the 2-year to the 3-year follow-ups. RESULTS. Respondents with higher problematic media use rated 8 of 9 items at 3 or above, indicating frequent distress. EFA and CFA confirmed a one-factor model (p < .05). Latent profile analysis identified three profiles based on Depression, ADHD, Anxiety, and grades (BIC = 130867, Entropy = .9477, p < .01): typical, at-risk, and clinical PMU. ROC analysis established cutoff scores: clinical (27-45), at-risk (15-26), and typical (9-14). A Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA (H(2, n = 6,859) = 467, p < .001) revealed significant differences in depression (p < .001), anxiety (p < .001), ADHD (p < .001), and grades across these scores (p < .001). Cross-lagged panel analysis showed a bi-directional relationship between PMU and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and ADHD, and drop in grades, a year later for youth in the clinical group, while the typical group showed no predictive relationship. Clinical symptoms and grades predicted PMU in the at-risk group, but PMU did not predict these symptoms (no evidence of bidirectionality). This study emphasizes the need for early PMU identification and targeted interventions to address psychopathology and academic decline.

Paper #4
Fluctuations in Mood During Social Media Use Among Adolescent Android and iPhone Instagram Users
Author information	Role
Daniela Munoz Lopez, University of Washington	Presenting author
Abstract
Social media platforms have become common vehicles for connection among adolescents (Common Sense Media, 2021) allowing for near constant interaction and connection with peers. Social media also offers spaces for emotion regulation and emotional sharing with peers (Drach et al., 2021). For example, Instagram is often used to share positive emotions (Vermeulen et al. 2018). It is likely that emotional states covary with the type of interactions adolescents experience online. For example, they might be rapidly switching from watching a funny video to having a difficult conversation with friends. Given the myriad of content that adolescents are exposed to on social media platforms, it is important to understand how this content may be influencing adolescent emotions and mood. Using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and daily diaries, we aimed to capture the real-time emotional states and daily fluctuations in mood among adolescent Instagram users. Our research team developed AppMinder, an EMA data collection app designed for Android devices (versions 10-13) to capture daily reflections from participants over the span of 10 days when using Instagram (Landesman et al., 2024). Android participants (NAndroid = 57, ages 13-17) were prompted to respond to a series of questions after using Instagram for at least 5 minutes. Adolescents reported on levels of arousal (high, low) and valence of their mood (positive, negative). Android participants were prompted a maximum of 5 times a day. iPhone participants (NiPhone = 78, ages 13-17) were sent one Qualtrics survey link at the end of the day for 9 days and were asked to report their levels of arousal and valence of their mood during the day while using Instagram. We had a total of 982 observations for Android participants and a total of 430 observations for iPhone participants. Most Android participants reported moods of low arousal, high valence (60.28%), followed by high arousal, high valence (20.56%), low arousal, low valence (16.92%), and high arousal, low valence (2.25%). iPhone users reported instances of mood that were high arousal, high valence (37.50%) followed by low arousal, low valence (28.10%), low arousal, high valence (23.28%), and finally high arousal, low valence (11.12%). These results indicate that user experiences of mood on Instagram differed across Android and iPhone users. However, these moods are generally positive as is evident be endorsements of low arousal, high valence for Android users and high arousal, high valence for iPhone users. Preliminary results show that adolescents are primarily experiencing positive moods on Instagram across Android and iPhone devices, indicating that most interactions are perceived to be mild (such as being entertained or amused). Participants also exhibited considerable between person differences in mood endorsement across devices. However, this may be a result of differences in temporal measurement, since Android users were reporting with more frequency each day. Thus, this study underscores the need for more granularity in the measurement of social media experiences that can better capture the fleeting nature of online interactions.

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