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BMC Public Health
Published in: BMC Public Health 1/2024

Open Access 01-12-2024 | Mood Disorders | Research

Bidirectional and cross-lag relationship between social media use and psychological wellbeing: evidence from an Indian adolescent cohort study

Authors: Chanda Maurya, Preeti Dhillon, Himani Sharma, Pradeep Kumar

Published in: BMC Public Health | Issue 1/2024

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Abstract

Introduction

In an online era like today, the relationship between social media and depression among adolescents and young adults is erratic and still continues to be a debatable subject. The study aims to examine the association and bi-directional relationship between social media usage and depressive symptoms among the adolescent boys and girls in India.

Methods

The study uses data from two waves of Understanding the Lives of Adolescents and Young Adults (UDAYA) project survey conducted in two Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Depression was measured by a Patient Health Questionnaire. Logistic regression has been used for analyzing the data comprising the same time period, whereas the bidirectional relationship between two time periods has been evaluated by Cross-Lagged Path Model.

Result

Findings suggest that the percentage of moderate depressive symptoms increased from 1.7% to 3.0% from Wave 1 to Wave 2. Depression among adolescent girls increased slightly from wave 1 to wave 2 whereas a slight decrement was noticed in the moderate form of depressive symptom among adolescent girls using social media for the two waves. Socioeconomic factors like education, age, gender played an important role in affecting depression among adolescents in both the Wave of the survey. The path relationship reveals that social media users in Wave 1 [β=0.22, p<0.001] were positively associated with social media users in Wave 2. Similar patterns were observed for depressive symptoms at both the waves of the survey. However, cross lagged relations between social media use and depression could not be established between the survey periods.

Conclusion

A significant degree of association was found between social media use and depression among adolescent boys and girls in the study. The present study concludes that factors like age, gender and education showed significant relationships with social media use and depression.
Appendix
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Metadata
Title
Bidirectional and cross-lag relationship between social media use and psychological wellbeing: evidence from an Indian adolescent cohort study
Authors
Chanda Maurya
Preeti Dhillon
Himani Sharma
Pradeep Kumar
Publication date
01-12-2024
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Public Health / Issue 1/2024
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2458
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-17276-1

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