Examining Early Adolescent Positive and Negative Social Technology Behaviors and Well-being During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Public concerns of how frequently adolescents used screens during the pandemic shutdowns fueled the need to research whether these behaviors were conducive or detrimental to their wellbeing. The aims of this longitudinal survey study of 586 middle school students in the Northeast U.S. were to examine (a) changes in positive and negative social technology behaviors prior to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic (fall 2019) compared to during the pandemic (fall 2020) including any differences by subgroups and (b) whether changes in social technology behaviors were associated with wellbeing outcomes and any moderating factors. We found that during this time period, there were significant increases in frequency of checking social media, social technology use before bedtime, and problematic internet use. Students also experienced significant increases in social anxiety, loneliness, and depressive symptoms, but also increased strategies of coping when stressed. By following our preregistered analytical plan, each research aim was addressed within a multilevel modeling framework with time nested within students. We found extremely small effects of social technology behaviors associated with wellbeing, such as online support seeking being related to strategies when coping with stress. Though we found statistically significant effects, none of the findings met our effect size criteria (i.e., effect of ≥.05). Overall, we did not find any strong support that the changes in wellbeing that adolescents experienced during the COVID-19 social distancing was meaningfully related to their social technology use, which is counter to the popular assumption that adolescent wellbeing is intricately tied to their social technology use.