Problematic social media use and adolescent mental well-being : a cross-national study on socioeconomic inequalities
Gracia, Pablo (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Sociologia)
Celik, Seyma (Trinity College Dublin)
Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics

Date:	2026
Description:	23 pàg.
Abstract:	Although the role of social media in youth mental health has been recently examined, how social inequalities structure the relationship between social media use and adolescent well-being across countries remains unclear. Employing a micro-macro framework, this study examines how family-level socioeconomic status (SES) and country-level income inequalities moderate the relationship between Problematic Social Media Use (PSMU)-a concept of risk-related social media use-and adolescents' psychological complaints and life satisfaction. Analyses apply mixed-effect multilevel models to data from 35 countries participating in the Health Behaviour of School Aged Children (HBSC) study (N∼145,000). Results show that PSMU is associated with higher psychological complaints and lower life satisfaction consistently across countries. Yet, these effects are stronger for low-SES adolescents than for high-SES adolescents, especially for life satisfaction. At the country level, the relationship between PSMU and poorer adolescent mental well-being is curvilinear, being larger in medium-inequality countries than in both low- and high-inequality countries. Additionally, the observed SES gaps in the association between PSMU and adolescent mental well-being persist across countries with different levels of inequality. Overall, this study shows that risk-related social media behaviours may harm low-SES adolescents more than high-SES adolescents, whereas the relationship between PSMU and adolescent mental well-being is largest in countries with medium income inequality levels.
Grants:	European Commission 870578 European Commission 101089233
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Adolescent mental well-being ; Cross-national research ; Problematic social media use ; Socioeconomic inequalities ; SDG 3 - Good health and well-being ; SDG 10 - Reduced inequalities
Published in:	Information, communication & society, 2026, p. 1-23, ISSN 1468-4462

DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2026.2639568

24 p, 895.1 KB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Social and Legal Sciences > Centre for Demographic Studies (CED-CERCA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles