JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Social media use is ubiquitous among LGBTQ+ adolescents, with youth reporting both positive and negative experiences. Time spent on LGBTQ+ sites and involvement in social justice oriented online civic activities can increase exposure to heterosexist and transphobic posts resulting in increases in depression, anxiety, and substance use. Collaborative social justice civic engagement may also increase LGBTQ+ adolescents’ social support online, which may buffer the mental health and substance use risks associated with online discrimination.

Objective:

Drawing on the minority stress and stress-buffering hypotheses, the current study tested time on LGBTQ+ sites, involvement in online social justice activities, the potentially mediating effect of online discrimination, and the moderating effect of online social support on mental health and substance use.

Methods:

An anonymous online survey conducted in Fall 2022 analyzed data from 571 respondents (Mean age = 16.4, SD = 1.1), including 21.5% cisgender lesbian girls, 32% cisgender gay boys, 19.1% cisgender bisexual adolescents, and 25.6% transgender/gender non-binary adolescents. In addition to demographics and online LGBTQ+ identity disclosure status, measures included time spent on LGBTQ+ social media sites, engagement in online LGBTQ+ social justice civic activities, past month’s exposure to social media discrimination, online social support, depressive and anxiety symptoms, and substance use.

Results:

Time spent on LGBTQ+ social media sites was unrelated to online discrimination after online civic engagement was accounted for (90%CI [-.007, .004]). Online social justice civic engagement was positively associated with social support (β = .4, 90%CI [.2, .4]), exposure to discrimination (β = .7, 90%CI [.8, 1.1]), and higher substance use risk (β = .2, 90%CI [.1, .6]). Consistent with minority stress theory, exposure to social media discrimination fully mediated the positive association between LGBTQ+ justice civic engagement and depressive (β = .3, 90%CI [1.6, 2.7]) and anxiety symptoms (β = .3, 90%CI [1.4, 2.4]). Contrary to the stress-buffering theory, social media social support did not moderate the association between exposure to discrimination with depressive (90% CI [-.07, .1]) and anxiety symptoms (90% CI [-.06, .1]) and substance use (90% CI [-.04, .01]).

Conclusions:

The results of this study highlight the importance of examining LGBTQ+ youths’ specific online activities and calls for both social media policy changes to mitigate the effects of algorithms exposing youth to heterosexist and transphobic messaging and strategies to increase the effectiveness of online social support to mitigate the effect of discrimination on the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth.