Problematic Social Media Use, Availability Distress, and Digital Status Seeking: Links to Friendship Network Structure among U.S. Adolescents.

Abstract

Social media provides youth with means to pursue and satisfy developmental needs for social belonging and status. Among multiple ways that youth engage with social media, availability distress, problematic social media use, and digital status seeking reflect how developmental needs of belonging and status are expressed in digital contexts. We examined how these manifestations of belonging and status needs were associated with friendship network structure. We tested how problematic social media use, availability distress, and digital status seeking were linked to similarity, popularity, and activity mechanisms of network structure in two ninth grade-level friendship networks from the southwestern U.S. (n = 381, 54% female; M age = 14.9; 34.4% White, 22.3% Hispanic/Latinx, 34.1% Multiracial, 9.2% Other race). Exponential random graph modeling revealed that friendships were more likely among youth with similar levels of problematic social media use and digital status seeking. Youth who reported higher levels of problematic social media use and digital status seeking were more popular as friends in their networks. These findings advance knowledge about how digital manifestations of the needs for belonging and status are associated with structures of in-person networks, highlighting the salience of the online world for adolescent in-person social lives.