It's not all about the likes: Social media affordances with nighttime, problematic, and adverse use as predictors of adolescent sleep indicators

Abstract

Objectives: Adolescents are the most prominent users of social media, and their exposure to different contents, platforms, and types of use continues to develop. At the same time, sleep deprivation is on the rise, which may contribute to worsened health. Therefore, this cross-sectional study set out to examine the relationships among several social media affordances, habits of use, and sleep indicators in adolescents.

Methods: Students ages 12-18 from a high school on Long Island, New York (N = 410) participated in an anonymous online survey focusing on various aspects of social media use as well as major sleep indicators (sleep displacement, presleep arousal, sleep quality, fatigue).

Results: Snapchat was the only platform to predict a worsened sleep indicator (later bedtime) and it correlated with problematic, adverse, and nighttime use, possibly due to closer relationships among users. More viewing of posts of sports, friends, and family predicted better sleep. Additionally, nighttime social media use, problematic social media use, and adverse social media use each predicted at least one worsened sleep indicator in a hierarchical regression model.

Conclusions: Although some implications were positive, results provided insight into the cons of social media use. This study provides evidence that in order to understand the role of social media in the sleep-wake process, one must look at the specific affordances each platform provides and the different nighttime, problematic, and adverse habits of use that can arise. Documenting the variety of media use behaviors, however, introduces a considerable multiple testing threat to this research area.

Keywords: Adolescence; Affordances; Habits; Instagram; Sleep; Snapchat; Social media use.