We found that social media use is not, in and of itself, a strong predictor of life satisfaction across the adolescent population: Social media effects are nuanced, small at best, reciprocal over time, gender specific

Social media’s enduring effect on adolescent life satisfaction. Amy Orben, Tobias Dienlin, and Andrew K. Przybylski. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, May 6, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1902058116

Abstract: In this study, we used large-scale representative panel data to disentangle the between-person and within-person relations linking adolescent social media use and well-being. We found that social media use is not, in and of itself, a strong predictor of life satisfaction across the adolescent population. Instead, social media effects are nuanced, small at best, reciprocal over time, gender specific, and contingent on analytic methods.

Keywords: social mediaadolescentslife satisfactionlongitudinalrandom-intercept cross-lagged panel models