IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v348y2024ics0277953624002831.html

Social media & subjectivity: Adolescent lived experiences with social media in a Southern California middle school

Author

Listed:
  • Sanchez, Giselle
  • Jenkins, Janis H.

Abstract

The widespread use of social media (SM) platforms among adolescents has raised concerns over its role in increased adverse physical and mental health conditions. However, current research linking SM use with adolescent health relies on tenuous correlational associations, disproportionately focuses on harmful effects of its use, and seldom examines the perspectives of youth themselves (Odgers and Jensen, 2020; Schønning et al., 2020). This article examines adolescent lived experience in relation to SM platform engagement. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2018–2019 and 2021–2022 among 75 middle-school adolescents living in an ethnically diverse and low-income Southern California community, we examine adolescent subjective experiences with SM platforms that illuminate adolescent concerns during this developmental stage. By attending to adolescent subjectivity, this article reveals the ways in which engagement with SM platforms is inextricable from cultural, social, political, and socio-emotional milieu.

Suggested Citation

  • Sanchez, Giselle & Jenkins, Janis H., 2024. "Social media & subjectivity: Adolescent lived experiences with social media in a Southern California middle school," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 348(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:348:y:2024:i:c:s0277953624002831
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116839
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953624002831
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116839?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rice, E. & Petering, R. & Rhoades, H. & Winetrobe, H. & Goldbach, J. & Plant, A. & Montoya, J. & Kordic, T., 2015. "Cyberbullying perpetration and victimization among middle-school students," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 105(3), pages 66-72.
    2. Sarah C. Boyle & Sebastian Baez & Bradley M. Trager & Joseph W. LaBrie, 2022. "Systematic Bias in Self-Reported Social Media Use in the Age of Platform Swinging: Implications for Studying Social Media Use in Relation to Adolescent Health Behavior," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(16), pages 1-15, August.
    3. Amy Orben & Andrew K. Przybylski & Sarah-Jayne Blakemore & Rogier A. Kievit, 2022. "Windows of developmental sensitivity to social media," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    4. Candice Odgers, 2018. "Smartphones are bad for some teens, not all," Nature, Nature, vol. 554(7693), pages 432-434, February.
    5. Amy Orben & Andrew K. Przybylski, 2019. "The association between adolescent well-being and digital technology use," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 3(2), pages 173-182, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arenas-Arroyo, Esther & Fernandez-Kranz, Daniel & Nollenberger, Natalia, 2025. "High speed internet and the widening gender gap in adolescent mental health: Evidence from Spanish hospital records," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    2. Xiao, ZhiMin, 2017. "Of young people and Internet cafés," SocArXiv 2d8rz, Center for Open Science.
    3. Luisa Fassi & Amanda M. Ferguson & Andrew K. Przybylski & Tamsin J. Ford & Amy Orben, 2025. "Social media use in adolescents with and without mental health conditions," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 9(6), pages 1283-1299, June.
    4. Christopher A. Kelly & Tali Sharot, 2025. "Web-browsing patterns reflect and shape mood and mental health," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 9(1), pages 133-146, January.
    5. Hiroyuki Egami & Md. Shafiur Rahman & Tsuyoshi Yamamoto & Chihiro Egami & Takahisa Wakabayashi, 2024. "Causal effect of video gaming on mental well-being in Japan 2020–2022," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 8(10), pages 1943-1956, October.
    6. Francesco Berlingieri & Matija Kovacic, 2025. "Health and relationship quality of sexual minorities in Europe," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(1), pages 1-39, March.
    7. Omar Hegazi & Samer Alalalmeh & Ahmad Alfaresi & Soheil Dashtinezhad & Ahmed Bahada & Moyad Shahwan & Ammar Abdulrahman Jairoun & Tesleem K. Babalola & Haya Yasin, 2022. "Development, Validation, and Utilization of a Social Media Use and Mental Health Questionnaire among Middle Eastern and Western Adults: A Pilot Study from the UAE," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-18, November.
    8. Yipeng Tang & Jian Liu, 2025. "Digital Parenting and Children’s Subjective Well-being: the Mediation Role of Children’s Digital Overuse," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 18(6), pages 2489-2506, December.
    9. Jen-Ho Chang & Chen-Wei Felix Yu & Chun-Yu Kuo, 2025. "Unpacking the Complex Interplay Between Internet Usage and Well-being Among Older Adults: Insights from a Socioemotional Selectivity Perspective," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 26(7), pages 1-16, October.
    10. Kovacic, Matija & Orso, Cristina Elisa, 2024. "Adverse childhood experiences and social media use in adulthood. Evidence from a novel EU survey," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1531, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    11. Venkat Ram Reddy Ganuthula & Krishna Kumar Balaraman & Nimish Vohra, 2025. "Hedonic Adaptation in the Age of AI: A Perspective on Diminishing Satisfaction Returns in Technology Adoption," Papers 2503.08074, arXiv.org.
    12. Gülsen Erden & Asil Ali Özdoğru & Sami Çoksan & Hale Ögel-Balaban & Yakup Azak & İlkiz Altınoğlu-Dikmeer & Aysun Ergül-Topçu & Yeşim Yasak & Gözde Kıral-Uçar & Seda Oktay & Pelin Karaca-Dinç & Ezgi Di, 2022. "Social Contact, Academic Satisfaction, COVID-19 Knowledge, and Subjective Well-being Among Students at Turkish Universities: a Nine-University Sample," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 17(4), pages 2017-2039, August.
    13. Kyung Im Kang & Kyonghwa Kang & Chanhee Kim, 2021. "Risk Factors Influencing Cyberbullying Perpetration among Middle School Students in Korea: Analysis Using the Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial Regression Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-12, February.
    14. Edyta Łuszczki & Anna Bartosiewicz & Gabriel Bobula & Maciej Kuchciak & Paweł Jagielski & Łukasz Oleksy & Artur Stolarczyk & Katarzyna Dereń, 2021. "New Media Development, Sleep and Lifestyle in Children and Adolescents," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-13, February.
    15. Begoña Cabeza Martínez & Béatrice d’Hombres & Matija Kovacic, 2025. "Social media use, loneliness and emotional distress among young people in Europe," Working Papers 2025: 01, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    16. repec:osf:socarx:e8hfn_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Amy Orben & Andrew K. Przybylski & Sarah-Jayne Blakemore & Rogier A. Kievit, 2022. "Windows of developmental sensitivity to social media," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    18. Leo Röhlke, 2024. "Changes in early adolescents' time use after acquiring their first mobile phone. An empirical test of the displacement hypothesis," University of Bern Social Sciences Working Papers 49, University of Bern, Department of Social Sciences.
    19. Vowels Matthew J., 2024. "Typical Yet Unlikely and Normally Abnormal: The Intuition Behind High-Dimensional Statistics," Statistics, Politics and Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 87-113, March.
    20. Xiongkai Tan & Sha Zhang & Ruichen Ge & Hong Zhao, 2024. "Connectivity in crisis: the contrasting roles of mobile and non-mobile Internet on subjective well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    21. Matija Kovacic & Cristina Elisa Orso, 2024. "Adverse childhood experiences and social media use in adulthood. Evidence from a novel EU survey," Working Papers 2024: 17, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:348:y:2024:i:c:s0277953624002831. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.