Temporal dynamics of young people's social media use and well-being: A continuous time meta-analysis of longitudinal research

Social media has become integral to young people's lives, shaping their social interactions and worldviews during a crucial life phase (Valkenburg & Piotrowski, 2017). While worries about its addictive nature and psychological harm are widespread, there is a troubling lack of concrete evidence to verify these concerns.

Despite extensive research, considerable uncertainty persists about how social media use relates to well-being, particularly over time (Valkenburg, 2022). For instance, does social media use engender short-term benefits but long-term repercussions? While there has been a recent increase in longitudinal studies, enabling assessments of bidirectional effects and temporal patterns, no meta-analysis has yet offered a robust and comprehensive view of the temporal dynamics of social media use and youth well-being. This knowledge gap largely stems from the significant methodological limitations of traditional meta-analytic approaches in handling varying measurement occasions within and across longitudinal studies, a likely source of inconsistent findings between studies.

To address these challenges, we will adopt recent methodological advancements by conducting the first-ever continuous time meta-analyses (Dormann et al., 2020) of longitudinal studies on social media use and youth well-being. Drawing on transactional media effects theories (Valkenburg & Peter, 2013), we will investigate the reciprocal over-time influence process between the media effect of social media use on well-being and the selection effect of well-being on social media use among young people. For example, to what extent does excessive social media use lead to youth depression versus pre-existing depression driving excessive social media use?

Our robust meta-analytic evidence will offer a comprehensive yet nuanced understanding of media and selection effects around youth social media use over time, clarifying consistency of effects across studies, particularly regarding developmental stages and gender, and providing a strong empirical basis to theorize the temporal dynamics of these effects. Harnessing the conceptual strength of longitudinal evidence, our novel meta-analytic approach will scrutinize how media and selection effects vary across multiple time intervals: their appearance, duration, relative sizes, consistency, and
symmetry. We will also identify the optimal time intervals and sample sizes for observing significant effects related to social media use, facilitating more effective and reliable future research and interventions.

With the expertise of the PI and Co-Is, a skilled meta-analyst (T.H. Chu) and a world-leading authority in (social) media effects on youth (Patti Valkenburg), we are well-equipped to execute this innovative project and provide groundbreaking insights into the temporal dynamics of social media use and youth well-being.