Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting
Date Submitted: Jan 29, 2020
Date Accepted: Mar 29, 2020
Evaluating the Impact of Social Media Use on High-Risk Behaviors in Adolescents
ABSTRACT
Background:
Previous studies have demonstrated the prevalence of social media use and identified the presence of high-risk behaviors among adolescents, including self-harm and sharing of sexually explicit messages.
Objective:
This study seeks to identify patterns in the amount of time spent on social media by adolescents who engage in high-risk behavior, and the extent to which they use social media as a platform for sharing such behaviors.
Methods:
Descriptive cross-sectional study of 176 adolescents seen in pediatric clinic at an urban medical center. We used an anonymous self-report survey to obtain demographic characteristics, rates of self-harm thoughts and behaviors, sharing of sexually explicit messages, and social media use as determined by total hours spent on social media per day and the number of applications used.
Results:
Most adolescents reported spending 3 to 5 hours on social media each day and utilizing three or more social media applications. Rates of self-injury and age of onset for self-injurious thoughts and behaviors were consistent with previous studies. Over a quarter of adolescents reported sharing sexually explicit messages. Relative risk of engaging in self-injury and or sharing sexually explicit messages increased with the use of four or more social media applications (1.66 [CI 1.11-2.48]).
Conclusions:
Results show a relationship between increased rates of high-risk behaviors and number of social media applications used. We identified relevant risk factors that clinicians can use to screen for high-risk behavior, and parents can monitor to encourage education about healthy online practices.
Citation

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