%0 Journal Article
%T The Longitudinal Association Between Social
%A Elliott MacDonell
%A Marie Good
%A Owen Daly
%A Taylor Heffer
%A Teena Willoughby
%J Clinical Psychological Science
%@ 2167-7034
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/2167702618812727
%X Research by Twenge, Joiner, Rogers, and Martin has indicated that there may be an association between social-media use and depressive symptoms among adolescents. However, because of the cross-sectional nature of this work, the relationship among these variables over time remains unclear. Thus, in this longitudinal study we examined the associations between social-media use and depressive symptoms over time using two samples: 594 adolescents (Mage = 12.21) who were surveyed annually for 2 years, and 1,132 undergraduate students (Mage = 19.06) who were surveyed annually for 6 years. Results indicate that among both samples, social-media use did not predict depressive symptoms over time for males or females. However, greater depressive symptoms predicted more frequent social-media use only among adolescent girls. Thus, while it is often assumed that social-media use may lead to depressive symptoms, our results indicate that this assumption may be unwarranted
%K depressive symptoms
%K social media
%K longitudinal
%K bidirectional associations
%K adolescents
%K young adults
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2167702618812727