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Abstract
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Aims
Increased social media screen time during the COVID-19 period may have varying relationships with sex and internalized problems across cultural contexts. This study examines the relationships between social media screen time, sex, and internalizing problems among adolescents or young adults in South Korea, the United States, and Canada.
Methods
The Korean adolescent data was sourced from the 2021 National Mental Health Survey of Korea, which included lifetime prevalence for four disorder groups (depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, trauma-related or eating disorders) based on KSADS-COMP. The data was collected between September 2022 and February 2023, with 3,141 adolescents (mean age = 14.50; 51.6% male; 11.5% had one of the four disorders). The US data came from the national Healthy Minds Study between September 2023 and May 2024, with 104,729 undergraduate and graduate students (mean age = 23.73; 42.28% male; 48.43% had one of the four disorders history). In Canada data, we analyzed anxiety or depression scores using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire among youth aged 12 to 25 in Southern Ontario, Canada, from early spring 2021 to spring 2022 (N=117; mean age = 16.82; 22% male; 50 % had anxiety or depression). All participants reported their daily social media usage as less than 1 hour, 1–3 hours, or more than 3 hours. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze binary relationships between sex, social media usage time, and internalizing problems.
Results and Conclusions
In the US, female students reported higher social media usage, with those spending more than three hours daily significantly more likely to experience internalizing problems (p < 0.001). Similarly, in Canada, females were more likely to use social media for over three hours daily. They exhibited a greater risk of internalizing problems than males, with prolonged usage showing a strong association with internalizing risk (p < 0.01). In Korea, females reported slightly higher social media usage and internalizing problems than males, but the relationship between prolonged usage and internalizing problems observed in North America was not evident. The findings highlight a strong link between prolonged social media use and internalizing problems among North American females, emphasizing the need for gender-specific interventions while acknowledging variations that suggest one-size-fits-all guidelines may not be universally effective.
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