Longitudinal Relations Among Adolescents' Cognitive Control, Social Media Use, Anxiety, and Depressive Symptoms

Most longitudinal studies lack multi-wave measures and rarely consider cognitive mechanisms, such as cognitive control, that may shape both the development of mental health and social media use. This study examined dynamic within-person relations and stable between-person correlations linking social media browsing (SMB), overall screen time, cognitive control, and depressive and anxiety symptoms across early- to mid-adolescence.

Participants were from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (N = 9,747, 52.3% female) assessed at baseline, 2-year, and 4-year follow-ups. Primary measures included self-reported SMB and overall screen time, parent-reported depressive and anxiety symptoms, and performance-based cognitive control from the Flanker and Stop Signal tasks. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models estimated within-person time-lagged associations and between-person correlations. Gender was examined as a moderator.

The within-person results revealed a cognitive pathway across genders and screen time types. When adolescents increased SMB (and overall screen time) at baseline, this predicted reduced cognitive control 2 years later (β = -.06, p = .020), which in turn predicted increased depressive symptoms at the 4-year follow-up (β = -.06, p = .010). Additionally, females with more baseline screen time had increased depressive symptoms 2 years later (β = .05, p = .016), which subsequently predicted increased screen time and anxiety symptoms at the 4-year follow-up (βs = .09 to .13, p's < .050).

Reduced cognitive control may be a general mechanism linking adolescent screen use and SMB to later depressive symptoms across genders, whereas changes in affect may be a gender-specific pathway in females.