The use of social media among adolescents is very widespread, as is the concern, among the adult population, about the negative consequences that this use may have on them. This could lead to adults losing sight of the fact that this use can be beneficial, or at least not harmful, for minors. Thus, during the lockdown due to the covid-19 pandemic, these digital environments allowed adolescents to remain in contact with their friends and enabled them to cope with loneliness. For this reason, the study conducted, on which this article is based, was focused on discovering the type of use made by adolescents – aged from 14 to 18 years – of social media in Spain and what consequences this use has on their well-being.

Analysis of the use of different online platforms showed that WhatsApp is the most popular social media network among adolescents, with practically the totality of them (99.6%) using it. It is also the network to which they devote most time, an average of four hours per day. It is followed by Instagram (95%) and TikTok (80%), while other social media networks such as Twitter (22.5%) and Facebook (21%) scarcely have users among the adolescent population.

Moreover, when they access these digital environments, adolescents mainly use social media in a passive way. Within this passive use, the most frequent activity is looking at photos, videos and stories from other people, something which 84.4% of minors do on a daily basis. With respect to the active use that they make of social media, it is worth pointing out that adolescents principally chat or send private messages: over eight out of ten boys and girls do this every day or several times per day. In contrast, they upload photos and videos less frequently, as only 14.9% of them do so once a week or more frequently.

Due to the potential negative consequences that cyber-victimization may have on minors, the greatest part of this investigation has focused on this aspect. However, the research has shown that adolescents can also find support on social media, a positive aspect that occurs with a much higher frequency. Thus, the data from the survey conducted show that nearly all adolescents, 99.4%, have found some form of support on social media. In fact, nearly eight out of every ten adolescents indicate that they find this online support always or often. Just 4% indicate that they receive online support very occasionally, while 0.6% indicate that they never find it. In contrast, 72.7% indicate that they have suffered some kind of online victimization, although this only occurs very occasionally. The remaining 27.3% have never experienced any form of online victimization.

With respect to the different types of support, the most frequent forms of online support for adolescents are having someone they can count on when they need to talk. Although the most important thing, for boys and girls alike, is being able to find somebody on social media who appreciates them or makes them feel loved. Both forms of support occur among 96% of adolescents. Addressing the negative aspects, the most frequent form of victimization found in digital environments is receiving insults or swear words, something experienced on at least one occasion by 52% of adolescents. In contrast, the least habitual form of victimization is someone uploading compromising photos or videos of them, something which was been experienced by 5% of survey participants.  

The number of hours that adolescents spend on social media is not related directly with their level of well-being (measured through the variables “loneliness”, “life satisfaction”, and “subjective vitality”). Nor is the frequency with which they make active or passive use of social media a determining factor, as shown by other research studies. In addition, when conducting monitoring, via a survey, over the course of four months, it was confirmed that frequency of use of social media does not have repercussions on the future well-being of boys and girls. It is important to point out that this relationship does not occur inversely either. In other words, the level of well-being of adolescents does not determine the use they make of social media in the long term.

In contrast, the study conducted shows that the level of well-being of adolescents is related with the experiences encountered on social media. Those who find most support online manifest a greater sensation of life satisfaction and a lesser sensation of loneliness. In turn, adolescents who are experiencing online victimization with a high frequency experience greater loneliness and lower life satisfaction.

Although adolescent girls devote, on average, an hour per day more to social media, no further differences exist between males and females regarding the type of use that they make of these digital environments. Moreover, and despite some prior research studies having indicated that girls suffer more online victimization, in the study conducted it was found that both boys and girls experience victimization online in a similar proportion. The results of the survey also show that, in both cases, adolescents find much more support than victimization on social media. 

Nor were differences found between age groups with respect to the time that adolescents devote to the use of social media, and the situations that they experience there. Finally, it is important to point out that the relationship between the use of social media and well-being does not change according to gender or age. In all cases, the frequency with which these digital environments are used is not related with the adolescent’s personal well-being.

The relationship between social support online and personal well-being is determined by the personality of each adolescent and, specifically, by their level of extroversion. Thus, for the most extrovert people, finding more or less support online is not relevant for their level of loneliness or life satisfaction. However, in the case of the most introvert adolescents, their level of social support on social media does bear a relationship to their level of well-being: their satisfaction is higher when they receive greater support online, while their loneliness is lower. According to some theories of online communication, this would benefit the shyest people in real life. 

In contrast, the rest of personality characteristics, such as amiability or openness to new experiences, does not seem to have a relevant role in the relationship between the use of social media networks and the well-being of adolescents. Thus, the relationship between suffering cyber-victimization and level of life satisfaction or loneliness is not influenced by the adolescent’s personality.

The research conducted, on which this article is based, shows that the well-being of adolescents is not related directly with the number of hours during which they use social media. In the same way, nor do active and passive use of social media have a differentiating effect. Although the frequency of use of social media is not relevant, what is relevant is the type of experiences they encounter when they use these digital environments. In this sense, it is important to highlight that adolescents encounter support online, related with greater well-being, much more frequently than victimization on social media. Therefore, this study shows the importance of studying not only the number of hours that adolescents spend on social media, but also the type of experiences that they encounter on them. 

The results presented in this article originate from a survey conducted in two waves, with four months of separation between them. As we have only two waves of data, we cannot establish relationships of causality between the variables. The statistical analyses only allow us to show whether determined variables are related, but not whether a variable (e.g. use of social media) is the cause of another variable (e.g. well-being). Furthermore, all the data have been provided by the participants. In other words, the frequency of use of social media or the level of well-being have been obtained baseed on partcipant responsees. Finally, in this survey adolescents were only asked about their online activities and behaviour, but not about their offline activities. In this sense, many research studies have shown that victimization and online victimization are closely relatd and frequently occur together. For this reason, some of the variables analysed in this research may have an important relationship with aspects of the real world that we have not taken into account. 

BEYENS, I., et al. (2021): «Social Media Use and Adolescents’ Well-Being: Developing a Typology of Person-Specific Effect Patterns», Communication Research, 0(0) 

CAUBERGHE, V., et al. (2021): «How Adolescents Use Social Media to Cope with Feelings of Loneliness and Anxiety During COVID-19 Lockdown», Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 24(4)