Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Study: Overall Time on Social Media is Not Related to Teen Anxiety and Depression

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on ScienceDaily.

The amount of time teenagers spend on social networking sites has risen 62.5 percent since 2012 and continues to grow. Just last year, the average time teenagers spent on social media was estimated as 2.6 hours per day. Critics have claimed that more screen time is increasing depression and anxiety in teenagers.

However, new research led by Sarah Coyne, a professor of family life at Brigham Young University, found that the amount of time spent on social media is not directly increasing anxiety or depression in teenagers.

"We spent eight years trying to really understand the relationship between time spent on social media and depression for developing teenagers," Coyne said about her study published in Computers in Human Behavior. "If they increased their social media time, would it make them more depressed? Also, if they decreased their social media time, were they less depressed? The answer is no. We found that time spent on social media was not what was impacting anxiety or depression."

Mental health is a multi-process syndrome where no one stressor is likely the cause of depression or anxiety. This study shows that it is not merely the amount of time spent on social media that's leading to an increase in depression or anxiety among adolescents.

"It's not just the amount of time that is important for most kids. For example, two teenagers could use social media for exactly the same amount of time but may have vastly different outcomes as a result of the way they are using it," Coyne said.

The goal of this study is to help society as a whole move beyond the screen time debate and instead to examine the context and content surrounding social media use.

In an effort to understand teenagers' mental health and their social media use, researchers worked with 500 youth between the ages of 13 and 20 who completed once-yearly questionnaires over an eight-year span. Social media use was measured by asking participants how much time they spent on social networking sites on a typical day. To measure depression and anxiety, participants responded to questions with different scales to indicate depressive symptoms and anxiety levels. These results were then analyzed on an individual level to see if there was a strong correlation between the two variables.

At age 13, adolescents reported an average social networking use of 31-60 minutes per day. These average levels increased steadily so that by young adulthood, they were reporting upwards of two hours per day. This increase in social networking, though, did not predict future mental health. That is, adolescents' increases in social networking beyond their typical levels did not predict changes in anxiety or depression one year later.

Source: ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191022174406.htm

Teens Who Have Loving Bond with Mother Less Likely to Enter Abusive Relationships

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on EurekAlert.

A mother's warmth and acceptance toward her teenagers may help prevent those children from being in an abusive relationship later in life, even if her own marriage is contentious, according to a new University at Buffalo study.

Previous research shows that adolescents who are exposed to marital conflict at a young age are at an increased risk to experience abuse in their romantic relations. However, the new study discovered that the child's relationship with their mother serves as a buffer by potentially promoting the teen's feelings of self-worth, says Jennifer Livingston, Ph.D., lead investigator and associate professor in the UB School of Nursing.

"Children form internal working models about themselves and others based on the quality of their relationship with their parents," said Livingston. "If the primary caretaker is abusive or inconsistent, children learn to view themselves as unlovable and others as hostile and untrustworthy. But positive parenting behaviors characterized by acceptance and warmth help children form positive internal working models of themselves as lovable and worthy of respect."

The results could help in the development of interventions that prevent teens from experiencing physical, emotional or sexual relationship abuse. More than 30% of adolescents are the victim of some type of abuse by a romantic partner, says Livingston, who is also a faculty member in the UB Clinical and Research Institute on Addictions (CRIA).

The research, published this month in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, surveyed more than 140 adolescents whose parents were married or cohabitating at the time of their birth.

The families are part of an ongoing study on the development of children of alcoholic parents. Half of the participants had at least one parent, most often the father, with an alcohol problem. The researchers examined the group due to the connection between alcoholism in fathers and family dysfunction.

The participants completed surveys in eighth grade and during their junior or senior year of high school, reporting on their exposure to conflict between their parents, perception of their relationship with their mother, and any involvement in dating violence.

The study discovered that children who experienced above-average levels of positive parenting behaviors from their mother in eighth grade were less likely to be involved in dating violence as a teenager, even when there were high levels of conflict in their parents' marriage.

Lower levels of warmth, responsiveness, and support by the mother did not weaken the harmful effects of marital conflict on her children.

Source: EurekAlert!
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-10/uab-stw102919.php

Flavored E-Cigarettes Get Teens Hooked on Vaping

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

In a finding that shows just how enticing tasty flavors are when it comes to vaping, a new study suggests that teens who use candy- or fruit-flavored e-cigarettes are more likely to continue vaping and to be heavy users.

Such flavors are fueling the teen vaping epidemic in the United States, according to the University of Southern California (USC) researchers.

Already, the Trump administration and several states have called for bans on fruit- and dessert-flavored e-cigarettes. In the face of that increasing pressure, Juul announced earlier this month that it will stop selling all fruit or dessert flavors of its e-cigarettes.

In the latest study, researchers tracked 478 Los Angeles-area teens who vaped, surveying them every six months from grade 10 in the spring of 2015 through grade 12 in 2017. About 9 of 10 teens in the study vaped fruit, candy, and other non-traditional flavors.

The researchers found that just over 64% of the teens who used these dessert flavors were still vaping six months later, compared with close to 43% of teens who used only traditional flavors such as tobacco or menthol.

Teens who used fruit, candy and other non-traditional flavors also had heavier e-cigarette use six months later, meaning they took more puffs each time they vaped.

Flavor did not appear to affect the number of days or times that teens vaped, according to the study published online in the journal Pediatrics.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/cancer-information-5/electronic-cigarettes-970/flavored-e-cigarettes-get-teens-hooked-on-vaping-study-finds-751627.html

Social Media Often Leaves Young Women Feeling Badly About Their Bodies

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on StudyFinds.

In a recent study conducted at York University in Toronto, researchers say many young women feel badly about their bodies after logging on and viewing images of friends they perceive to be more attractive.

Images posted to social media are often far from reality, but this research is among the first to analyze how all of these unrealistic pictures impact young women’s views on their own bodies. Researchers monitored young women between 18 and 27 years old who liked or commented on photos of people they believe to be more attractive than themselves.

“The results showed that these young adult women felt more dissatisfied with their bodies,” says co-lead researchers Jennifer Mills, an associate psychology professor at York, in a university release. “They felt worse about their own appearance after looking at social media pages of someone that they perceived to be more attractive than them. Even if they felt bad about themselves before they came into the study, on average, they still felt worse after completing the task.”

The researchers distributed an online questionnaire to a group of 118 female undergraduate students from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Each student stated their age, ethnicity, years of post-secondary education, and whether or not English was their first language. Participants were also asked to rate how satisfied or dissatisfied they were with their appearance. All of this took place six weeks before the experimental phase of the study.

Then, for the experiment, participants were randomly assigned to one of two possible experimental groups. The first group was asked to view the profile of one peer of the same age on Facebook or Instagram they felt was more attractive than them. After at least five minutes, participants were asked to leave a comment of their choice.

Participants in the second group were asked to complete the same task as group one, except this time with a family member’s social media profile whom they did not think was more attractive than themselves. Subsequent data analysis revealed that interacting with these familial profiles had no impact on the subject’s self-body images.

The study was published in the journal Body Image.

Source: StudyFinds
https://www.studyfinds.org/social-media-often-leaves-young-women-feeling-badly-about-their-bodies/

What's Hot? 10/25/19

Trending Today on Twitter - 10/25/19
1. #FridayThoughts
2. #FridayFeeling
3. #FridayMorning
4. #FridayMotivation
5. #ImpeachmentTaskForceRises
6. Finally Friday
7. Obnoxious
8. Facebook News
9. Could Lindsay Graham
10. Jose Andres
Source: Twitter

Trending Today on Google - 10/25/19
1. Adele
2. San Antonio Weather
3. Vikings
4. Kincade Fire
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6. Katie Hill
7. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
8. Bucks vs Rockets
9. Jesus is King
10. Diuretic
Source: Google

Apple Music Top 10 Singles - 10/25/19
1. HIGHEST IN THE ROOM - Travis Scott
2. Bandit - Juice WRLD & YoungBoy Never Broke Again
3. Make No Sense - YoungBoy Never Broke Again
4. Lonely Child - YoungBoy Never Broke Again
5. Playing Games - Summer Walker & Bryson Tiller
6. Hot Now - YoungBoy Never Broke Again
7. No Guidance (feat. Drake) - Chris Brown
8. Come Thru - Summer Walker & Usher
9. Self Control - YoungBoy Never Broke Again
10. Circles - Post Malone
Source: Apple Music

Top 10 TV (Broadcast) Shows - Week Ending 10/20/19
1. Sunday Night Football
2. Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick
3. Thursday Night Football
4. NCIS
5. Football Night in America - Pt 3
6. Chicago Med
7. FBI
8. Chicago PD
9. Thursday Night NFL Pre-Kick
10. Chicago Fire
Source: Nielsen Co.

Trending Today on YouTube - 10/25/19
1. Selena Gomez - Look At Her Now
2. Joe Rogan Experience #1368 - Edward Snowden
3. Doja Cat - Rules
4. I THINK
5. Maisie Williams Shivers Uncontrollably While Eating Spicy Wings
Source: YouTube

Top 5 Movies - Last Weekend
1. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
2. Joker
3. Zombieland: Double Tap
4. The Addams Family
5. Gemini Man
Source: Rotten Tomatoes

3+ Hours Daily Social Media Use Linked to Poor Sleep Patterns in UK Teens

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on MedicalXpress.

Spending three or more hours a day on social media is associated with poor sleep patterns, such as falling asleep after 11 pm on school nights and waking during the night, among UK teens, suggests research published in the online journal BMJ Open.

The findings "provide rigorous and meaningful evidence to inform practice and policy to support healthy adolescent sleep and social media use," say the researchers.

There is growing concern about the possible impact of screen time, and specifically social media use, on the mental health and wellbeing of young people. But there is little clear evidence to inform policy and clinical practice in this area.

To address this knowledge gap, the researchers set out to generate a typical profile of social media use and sleep patterns among UK teens.

They analyzed data for 11,872 adolescents (aged 13-15) from the UK Millennium Cohort Study. This has been tracking the health of a large nationally representative sample of people born between 2000 and 2002.

Participants reported how much time they spent on social media to include social networking or messaging sites or Apps, such as Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp on a typical weekday.

They also reported typical sleep habits, including what time they fell asleep and woke up on both school days and free days; how long it took them to fall asleep; and any difficulties they had falling back asleep after waking during the night.

Just over a third (33.7%) of the teens said they spent less than 1 hour a day on social media so were classed as low users, while just under a third (31.6%) said they spent 1 to 3 hours a day on it and were classed as average users.

Of the remainder, just under 14% were high users (3 to 5 hours a day) and around one in five (just under 21%) were very high users (more than 5 hours a day).

After taking account of family background as well as physical and psychological health, the researchers found that heavier social media use was generally associated with poorer sleep patterns.

Very high social media users were roughly 70% more likely to fall asleep after 11 pm on school days and after midnight on free days than were average users.

Both high and very high social media users were also more likely to say they woke later (after 8 am) on school days than average users, and very high users were more likely to say they had trouble getting back to sleep after waking during the night.

But low social media users were least likely to fall asleep late and wake up late, lending weight to the idea that social media displaces sleep. This is a particular concern on school days, as late bedtimes then "predict poorer academic and emotional outcomes," note the authors.

Girls tended to spend more time on social media than boys and reported poorer sleep quality.

This is an observational study, and as such, can't establish cause.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-10-hours-daily-social-media-linked.html

Boys With Social Difficulties At Much Higher Risk Of Early Substance Abuse

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on StudyFinds.

Adolescent boys can be a handful; some act out with inappropriate behavior, while others may struggle to fit in socially among their peers. While most parents assume their son will grow out of such behavior as they mature, a new set of research suggests that social and behavioral difficulties in adolescent boys may act as a precursor to aggressive actions and drug abuse a few years later.

Boys entering the sixth grade with simultaneously occurring social skill, anxiety, conduct, and learning problems are at the greatest risk of developing more aggressive behavior and becoming regular users of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana by the end of eighth grade, a study by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign finds.

“While substance use among all boys in the study population increased over time, it increased the fastest among boys who had the greatest social skills needs,” says University of Illinois social work professor Kevin Tan, the principal investigator of the study, in a university release.

Tan and his team found four patterns of co-occurring social-emotional learning and behavior problems in the 2,600+ middle school boys involved in the study.

Adolescent males who had serious problems in all four domains; social skills, anxiety, learning, and conduct, were found to be the most likely to engage in aggressive behaviors and substance abuse by the end of eighth grade. This group comprised 6.3% of the total study population sample.

On the other hand, males who scored well on social, learning, conduct, and emotional tests, a group that comprised 61% of the sample, exhibited only small increases in physical aggression and substance abuse.

The third behavioral pattern group, boys with poor social skills combined with learning and conduct problems, entered the sixth grade with the most behavioral problems. However, their physical and relational aggression, along with their cigarette smoking, actually declined by the eighth grade. Their alcohol and marijuana use didn’t change.

Finally, researchers identified another at-risk group that has largely been ignored up until now: boys with positive social skills but moderate issues with learning, anxiety, and conduct. This group made up 15% of the participants in this study.

Source: StudyFinds
https://www.studyfinds.org/boys-with-social-difficulties-at-much-higher-risk-of-early-drug-abuse-study-finds/

No Link Found Between Youth Contact Sports and Cognitive, Mental Health Problems

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on MedicalXpress.

Adolescents who play contact sports, including football, are no more likely to experience cognitive impairment, depression or suicidal thoughts in early adulthood than their peers, suggests a new University of Colorado Boulder study of nearly 11,000 youth followed for 14 years.

The study, published this month in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, also found that those who play sports are less likely to suffer from mental health issues by their late 20s to early 30s.

"There is a common perception that there's a direct causal link between youth contact sports, head injuries and downstream adverse effects like impaired cognitive ability and mental health," said lead author Adam Bohr, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Integrative Physiology. "We did not find that."

The study comes on the heels of several highly-publicized papers linking sport-related concussion among former professional football players to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), cognitive decline and mental health issues later in life. Such reports have led many to question the safety of youth tackle football, and participation is declining nationally.

But few studies have looked specifically at adolescent participation in contact sports.

The study analyzed data from 10,951 participants in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), a representative sample of youth in seventh through 12th grades who have been interviewed and tested repeatedly since 1994.

"We were unable to find any meaningful difference between individuals who participated in contact sports and those who participated in non-contact sports. Across the board, across all measures, they looked more or less the same later in life," said Bohr.

Football players—for reasons that are not clear—actually had a lower incidence of depression in early adulthood than other groups.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-10-link-youth-contact-sports-cognitive.html

Deaths Due to Suicide, Homicide on the Rise Among U.S. Youth

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

More teens and young adults are coming to a violent end in recent years, either at their own hand or another's, new federal data show.

Both suicide and homicide death rates are rising among 10- to 24-year-olds, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

"Recently, in the last few years, they're both trending upward. Suicide began to turn upward earlier, in 2007, and now in 2014, homicide turned around as well," said Sally Curtin, an NCHS statistician. "These are leading causes of death, and they both are increasing now."

The suicide rate for young people aged 10 to 24 rose 56% between 2007 and 2017, with the pace increasing of late, the researchers said.

Suicide deaths increased 7% annually from 2013 to 2017, compared with 3% annually between 2007 and 2013, the investigators found.

Meanwhile, homicide deaths among 10- to 24-year-olds rose 18% between 2014 and 2017, after nearly a decade in decline, the researchers said.

Accidental deaths -- car crashes, drug overdoses, and drownings -- remain the leading cause of death in this age group, Curtin said. But deaths due to suicide and homicide are right behind and rising.

It's impossible to nail down any single cause for this increase in violent deaths among the young, said Dr. Alex Crosby, chief medical officer for the division of injury prevention at the CDC.

Homicide and suicide rates differed slightly between specific age groups of young people, the researchers reported.

For example, the suicide rate for 10- to 14-year-olds nearly tripled between 2007 and 2017, while their homicide rate declined 18% during the period between 2000 and 2017.

But people in the 15 to 19 and 20 to 24 age ranges have experienced increases in both suicide and homicide rates.

The report was published in the October issue of the CDC's NCHS Data Brief.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/general-health-information-16/suicide-health-news-646/deaths-due-to-suicide-homicide-on-the-rise-among-u-s-youth-751349.html

What's Hot? 10/18/19

Trending Today on Twitter - 10/18/19
1. #FridayFeeling
2. #AllWomanSpacewalk
3. #FridayThoughts
4. #FridayMotivation
5. #MakeItRight
6. Kash Dolll
7. Christina Koch
8. General Mattis
9. Finally Friday
10. Harada
Source: Twitter

Trending Today on Google - 10/18/19
1. Earthquake
2. Demi Lovato
3. Daryl Morey
4. Playboi Carti
5. Patrick Mahomes
6. Elijah Cummings
7. Yankees
8. Ovidio Guzman Lopez
9. Quid pro quo
10. Kane Brown
Source: Google

Apple Music Top 10 Singles - 10/18/19
1. HIGHEST IN THE ROOM - Travis Scott
2. Bandit - Juice WRLD & YoungBoy Never Broke Again
3. Lonely Child - YoungBoy Never Broke Again
4. Make No Sense - YoungBoy Never Broke Again
5. Self Control - YoungBoy Never Broke Again
6. Hot Now - YoungBoy Never Broke Again
7. Carter Son - YoungBoy Never Broke Again
8. No Guidance (feat. Drake) - Chris Brown
9. Playing Games - Summer Walker & Bryson Tiller
10. Come Thru - Summer Walker & Usher
Source: iTunes

Top 10 TV (Broadcast) Shows - Week Ending 10/13/19
1. Thursday Night Football
2. Sunday Night Football
3. 60 Minutes
4. Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick
5. NCIS
6. Football Night in America - Pt 3
7. Thursday Night NFL Pre-Kick
8. FBI
9. The Voice - Tues
10. The Voice - Mon
Source: Nielsen Co.

Trending Today on YouTube - 10/18/19
1. Paul Rudd Does a Historic Dab While Eating Spicy Wings
2. The Spongebob Character Tier List
3. NASA Astronauts Spacewalk
4. Everything Wrong With Brightburn In Evil Superman Minutes
5. Recreating Guy Fieri's Trash Can Nachos From Taste
Source: YouTube

Top 5 Movies - Last Weekend
1. Joker
2. The Addams Family
3. Gemini Man
4. Abominable
5. Downton Abbey
Source: Rotten Tomatoes