Social Media and Adolescent Health (2024) / Chapter Skim
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8 Research
Pages 197-220
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From page 197... ...
There are potential harms and benefits associated with social media that might come to light through careful analysis of the platforms' algorithms over which, as Chapter 5 discussed, social media companies retain extremely tight control. This report has advocated for greater openness to algorithmic audit on the part of platforms, but some of the barriers to algorithmic research are more subtle.
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From page 198... ...
Recommendation 8-1: The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and other research funders should support a research agenda that gives priority to the health conse quences of social media use, the epidemiology of problematic use, the mechanisms through which social media use influences health, efforts to remediate harms associated with social media use, the role of parents and other adults in influencing positive use, and algo rithmic audits. Across topics, the agencies should emphasize the need for validated tools to measure exposure to social media affor dances, data sharing, and the establishment of long-term cohort
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From page 199... ...
. The committee commends research using randomized designs to study social networks, such as paying an experimental group of participants to stop using social media and following them over time (Allcott et al., 2019; Baym et al., 2020)
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More importantly, measures of time spent on a social networking site does not capture if the time was spent happily, enviously, or in a neutral state. The same attention to measurement would also bring more clarity to the concept of well-being, an oft discussed but poorly operationalized outcome.
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From page 201... ...
Ongoing longitudinal studies, such as the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, have already uncovered some associations between the length of time teens spend using screen media and poorer academic performance, sleep,
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From page 202... ...
Across projects, there should be a greater emphasis on understanding both the risk and protective factors that are associated with various physical and mental health indicators. Incorporating a Diversity of Experiences This report has emphasized that social media affordances are tools and that these tools are used differently by widely diverse cross-sections of young people.
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From page 203... ...
. The experimental social media platforms described earlier in this chapter could be helpful in understanding how content influences the psychological experience of social media and how various mechanisms interact to influence physical
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Some evidence suggests that teenagers who do not use the major social networking platforms are perceived as less popular but
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. Qualitative research among people who quit social media suggests that despite initial, heightened anxiety about being left out, those feelings dissipate after a few months (Pennington, 2021)
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Society would benefit from a more precise understanding of the etiological pathway through which ordinary social media use becomes uncontrolled social media use. Internet gaming disorder and problematic social media use are unambiguously harmful endpoints, yet it is not clear who is at greatest risk to develop them.
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From page 207... ...
The recent Surgeon General's report Social Media and Youth Mental Health, for example, included advice that parents keep regular family meal times free of devices and to work with other parents to set consistent boundaries on social media (HHS, 2023)
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With these parents in mind, the committee encourages more research exploring precisely how parents and other adult authority figures can best influence adolescents' use of social media and their safety online. There is evidence that poor relationships with parents are associated with internet gaming disorder, excessive social media use, and overuse of technology in general, but the direction of this relationship is not clear (Schneider et al., 2017; Trumello et al., 2021; White-Gosselin and Poulin, 2022)
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From page 209... ...
On the one hand, the Supreme Court reserved the question whether exceeding authorized access applies only to areas of computers that are protected by "technological (or ‘code-based') limitations on access" or whether it also applies "to limits contained in contracts or policies."3 This reservation leaves open the possibility that web scraping could lead to CFAA liability (Abdo et al., 2022)
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Those conducting extensive scraping of social media sites to col 4 Van Buren vs. United States, 593 U
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And, people conducting extensive scraping of social media sites to collect data for research may also face potential liability under the FTC Act, contract law, and tort law. Indeed, in the current climate companies are becoming progressively more opposed to data sharing and cooperation with researchers.
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From page 212... ...
Recommendation 8-3: Congress should pass legislation to ensure researchers can access data to examine the effects of social media on child and adolescent health. In its spirit, making data accessible to researchers is a matter of openness to people with a legitimate public interest need.
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From page 213... ...
sion (2021–2022) undue burden exempt, "aim user-generated on platform to study content and sells activity on advertising a platform," and meet other criteria determined by NSF Social Media Disclo- Academic re- An ad library None More than 100 None No.
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From page 214... ...
nonprofit design, and information at available to fewer count or data donated by algorithms request of users, researchers informed users; platform and their FTC may vary cannot discriminate effect on soci- specifications against researcher ety, including health effects Kids Online Safety Act Researchers affili- Data relating Public inter- A site used NTIA to establish Yes; no action may be ated with institu- to the harms est research or reasonably standards includ- taken for violating terms 117th Congress, 2nd Ses- tion of higher edu- and safety of on the safety expected to be ing confidentiality of service sion (2021–2022) cation or relevant minors such and well-be- used by minors standard nonprofit and as promotion ing of minors approved by the of self-harm Assistant Secretary or eating of Commerce for disorders, Communications patterns of use and Information that suggest addiction, promotion of unlawful products or service
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American Data Privacy Any research What is Public inter- No mandatory All relevant research No and Protection Act project "reasonably est research data sharing laws and human sub necessary, jects protections 117th Congress, 2nd Ses- proportionate, sion (2021–2022) and limited" for the scien tific project NOTE: NSF = National Science Foundation; IRB = institutional review board; FTC = Federal Trade Commission; NTIA = National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
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2023b. Restricting Reddit data access threatens online safety & public-interest research.
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2023. Twitter's new data access rules will make social media research harder.
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2023. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act after Van Buren.
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2021. Passive sensing of preteens' smartphone use: An Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD)
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