Investigating risk profiles of smartphone activities and psychosocial factors in adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Associations of adolescents' smartphone use and well-being have been contradictory. The present study investigates patterns of smartphone use and psychosocial risk / protective factors in US adolescents during COVID-19 and examines their associations with depression symptom trajectories from 5 yearly waves beginning prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Latent profile analyses revealed three risk profiles, including a high risk profile (18.9% adolescents) characterized by elevated social media use, high levels of psychosocial risk, and low levels of protective variables. Latent growth mixture modeling identified three depression trajectories; stable low, moderate-increasing, and high-severely increasing depression. Both the moderate-increasing and high-severely increasing depression trajectories were associated with membership in the high risk profile. Results highlight the impacts of type of smartphone activity rather than use per se and can inform targeted intervention strategies.