BackgroundSeveral large-scale studies and reviews have reported both negative and positive associations of social media use with well-being, suggesting that the findings are more complex and need more nuanced study. Moreover, there is little or no exploration of how social media use in adolescence influences flourishing, a more all-encompassing construct beyond well-being, including six sub-domains (i.e., happiness, meaning and purpose, physical and mental health, character, close social relationships, and financial stability). This paper aims to fill this gap by understanding how adolescents might flourish through social media activities by fulfilling the basic needs pointed out by the Self-Determination Theory, i.e., relatedness, autonomy, and competence.MethodsThe study is drawn on cross-sectional data collected from 1,429 Swiss adolescents (58.8% females, Mage = 15.84, SDage = 0.83) as part of the HappyB project in Spring 2022. Self-reported measures included the Harvard Adolescent Flourishing scale, positive and negative online social experiences, self-disclosure on social media, and social media inspiration. Control variables included, among others, self-esteem, ill-being, and personality.ResultsAfter applying Bonferroni’s correction, results of the hierarchical regression analyses showed that positive social media experiences (β = 0.112, p < 0.001) and social media inspirations from others (β = 0.072, p < 0.001) and for others (β = 0.060, p = 0.003) were positively associated with flourishing. Flourishing was inversely associated with negative social media experiences (β = −0.076, p < 0.001). Among covariates, self-esteem (β = 0.350, p < 0.001), ill-being (β = −0.252, p < 0.001), perceived school environment (β = 0.138, p < 0.001), self-reported level of physical activity (β =0.109, p < 0.001), and perceived socio-economic status (β = −0.059, p = 0.001) were all related to flourishing. In contrast, gender, high school year, age, perceived stress, and personality (extraversion and neuroticism) were not.ConclusionUsing a well-being framework to investigate social media use in adolescents is needed to go beyond the ill-being perspective. Our results align with the needs pointed out by the Self-Determination Theory. Carrying out social media activities in a way that promotes—rather than diminishes—flourishing should be included as an additional good habit influencing adolescents’ development. We suggest that interventions aiming to foster adolescents’ flourishing should include curricula aiming to promote a good use of social media through positive online social relationships and inspirational contents.

The dataset includes information about gaming activity, potential gaming, Internet and SNS addiction, collected among a large sample of Polish adolescents. The study was a part of the project named: "Internet Gaming Disorder - the characteristics and prevalence of the phenomenon and its psychological correlates among primary and lower secondary school students in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian and Warmian-Masurian voivodships" - a public task co-financed by the Gambling Problem Solving Fund at the disposal of the Minister of Health (Poland), grant number 165/HBK/2018. Data were collected in 2018 in two voivodships: kujawsko-pomorskie (Kuyavian-Pomeranian) and warmińsko-mazurskie (Warmian-Masurian). The selection of educational institutions (primary and lower secondary schools) was random. The study was conducted in 10 locations (urban and rural). The sample consists of 1500 students aged 10-18 years. Headmaster of the particular school gave the consent for the study. The students during school time (usually at educational lesson) were informed about the purpose of the study, that it is anonymous and participation is voluntary, and that they may refuse or resign from it at any time. Dataset contains sociodemographic variables. The following measures were used: (i) Gaming activity questions (playing or not playing; types of games played - online, offline; with who the participant play games; devices used for gaming, frequency, emotions related to gaming, parents control and interest in children gaming, parents gaming activity); (ii) The Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-Short Form (IGD9-SF; Pontes & Griffiths, 2015); (iii) Ten-Item Internet Gaming Disorder Test (IGDT-10; Király, Sleczka, et al., 2017); (iv) Internet Addiction Test (IAT; Young 1998),(v) The Scale of Excessive Use of Social Networking Sites (Kotyśko, Michalak, in press). Measures of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGDS9-SF and IGDT-10) were randomly distributed to participants (one half of the measure sets included IGDS9-SF and other half the IGDT-10 - however all of the sets were mixed to improve the randomisation). The rest of the measures were used among all participants. Date: 2018-02-01 – 2018-06-21 (data collection)

Lifetime and current substance use by in-school and out-of-school adolescent characteristics in Tanga, Tanzania.