Social Media Use and Adolescents' Mental Health and Well-being: an Umbrella Review

This umbrella review analyses the risks and opportunities for adolescents’ mental health and well-being associated with Social Media use and the main risk mitigation proposals presented in systematic, scoping and narrative literature reviews and meta-analyses. Following the PRIOR guidelines, we defined inclusion and exclusion criteria for Population, Exposure and Outcomes and searched articles published from January 2015 up to April 2023 in four databases: Scopus, Web of Science, PsychInfo, and Pubmed. We screened 1470 publications and analyzed 24 literature reviews and meta-analyses on the impact of SMU on adolescents' mental health. This paper discusses both the findings and the recommendations of the selected articles in terms of the main risks and opportunities associated with SMU, research and methodological gaps and practical risk mitigation measures. We discuss the limitations of not accounting for key differences both in the adolescent population and social media platforms and the need for the latter to adopt ethical design principles that take into consideration users’ best interests, arguing that it would contribute to introducing a systemic change to achieve a population-level shift, which is harder to attain if the burden of responsible use is only attributed to individuals’ choices. Finally, we discuss the opportunities brought by the upcoming regulatory frameworks, such as the EU Digital Services Act, on the matter.

SALA Arianna;  PORCARO Lorenzo;  GOMEZ Emilia; 

2024-04-30

Elsevier BV

JRC135339

2451-9588 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245195882400037X?via%3Dihub,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC135339,   

10.1016/j.chbr.2024.100404 (online),