ArticleJournal of adolescence2026
Time Out: A Scoping Review of Non-Duration Based Social Media Use Measures and Adolescent Mental Health.
Article in Journal of adolescence, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Straightlining prevalence across domains of social media use and impact on internal consistency and mental health associations in the LifeOnSoMe study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionResearch to understand the role of social media use (SMU) in explaining deteriorating adolescent mental health has been limited by broad, nonspecific measures of social media use, specifically 'time spent on social media'. These measures provide insufficient detail to capture specific risk and protective factors to users.
methodsWe conducted a scoping review of observational and experimental studies of the relationship between non-duration-based SMU measures and mental health outcomes in adolescents ≤ 18 years old. Studies that measured SMU solely based on time spent on a platform were excluded.
resultsThe initial search returned 868 articles. After inclusion and exclusion, we identified 217 studies, but among them 133 (61%) used duration-based SMU measures and were excluded. Of the 84 remaining studies, most focused on depression (48%), or anxiety (23%), though nine total mental health domains were included. Studies used 85 distinct measures of SMU, and fewer than half (n = 37; 45%) provided evidence of validity. SMU measures were grouped into five domains, including SMU habits, addiction-like measures, structural aspects, interactions on SM, and feelings about SM. Social comparison and addiction-related measures were consistently linked with poor mental health. SMU for socialization was consistently associated with decreased loneliness. Evidence of protective associations were otherwise limited.
conclusionsThese findings contribute to a more complete understanding of specific types of SMU that contribute to adolescent mental health. This specificity may help to identify modifiable targets for use in prevention programs and policy development for social media regulation.
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Registered trials
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