ArticleCurrent psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.)2026
Diverse platforms, diverse effects: Evidence from a 100-day study on social media and adolescent mental health.
Article in Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.), 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
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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.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Navigating the Algorithm: A Narrative Review of Social Media's Impact on Mental Health in Clinical and Non-Clinical Adolescent Populations.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Applying a gendered lens to the issue of adolescent social media use and well-being by exploring salient susceptibilities and alternative within-person processes.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Social comparison and maladaptive emotion regulation are associated with poorer mental health in social media users.Scientific reports · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The rising prevalence of mental health problems among adolescents has prompted increased scrutiny of social media as a contributing factor. Previous research has produced mixed results, likely due to the varying impact of social media on different dimensions of mental health. To advance understanding in this area, this study examined how social media use affects three critical dimensions of adolescent mental health - well-being, self-esteem, and friendship closeness. Specifically, we examined whether adolescents experienced consistent (unity) or contrasting (duality) effects across these dimensions by analyzing 44,211 daily diaries from 479 adolescents over 100 days. We found that the majority of adolescents (60%) experienced unity in negative effects of social media, suggesting that social media use is a notable contributor to mental health issues. Moreover, 13.6% of adolescents experienced duality in effects, indicating that social media use simultaneously harms and benefits different dimensions of their mental health. Exploratory analyses demonstrated the importance of examining platform-specific effects, revealing negative impacts of TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram use and positive or null effects of Snapchat and WhatsApp use on the three dimensions of mental health. Our findings highlight the need for tailored strategies that account for the varying impacts of social media on adolescent mental health.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.