Fox Kara A, Nick Elizabeth, Nesi Jacqueline, Telzer Eva H, Prinstein Mitchell J
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol. 2023 Oct 5:1-11. doi: 10.1080/15374416.2023.2261543.
Many adolescents feel pressure to be constantly available and responsive to others via their smartphones and social media. This phenomenon has been understudied using quantitative methods, and no prior study has examined adolescents' specific stress about meeting digital availability expectations within a best friendship, or entrapment. The present study offers an important preliminary examination of this unique digital stressor in a developmental context by examining prospective associations between digital entrapment, psychosocial adjustment, and health in adolescence.
Students in a rural, lower-income school district in the southeastern US ( = 714; 53.8% female; 45.9% White, 22.7% Black, 24.0% Hispanic/Latino) completed self-report measures of digital entrapment, perceived general health, friendship conflict, and depressive symptoms at two timepoints, one year apart.
Digital entrapment, which 76.3% of the sample reported experiencing, was associated prospectively with higher levels of friendship conflict and worse perceived general health one year later among boys, but not girls. Findings suggest that digital entrapment is an extremely common experience for adolescents that may disproportionally affect boys. Entrapment was not prospectively associated with depressive symptoms.
Results offer insight into how boys may have different social media experiences significant to their development and health, while much work exploring gender differences in social media use thus far has elucidated negative effects for girls. Boys may perceive and respond to novel social norms of digital environments differently such that digital entrapment has the potential to be detrimental to their friendships and health.
许多青少年感到有压力，要通过智能手机和社交媒体随时保持在线并回应他人。这种现象尚未通过定量方法进行充分研究，之前也没有研究考察过青少年在一段最好的友谊中满足数字可用性期望方面的特定压力，即数字束缚。本研究通过考察青少年时期数字束缚、心理社会适应和健康之间的前瞻性关联，对这一独特的数字压力源在发展背景下进行了重要的初步检验。
美国东南部一个农村低收入学区的学生（n = 714；53.8%为女性；45.9%为白人，22.7%为黑人，24.0%为西班牙裔/拉丁裔）在两个时间点（相隔一年）完成了关于数字束缚、感知总体健康、友谊冲突和抑郁症状的自我报告测量。
76.3%的样本报告经历过数字束缚，一年后，数字束缚与男孩中更高水平的友谊冲突和更差的感知总体健康呈前瞻性关联，但与女孩无关。研究结果表明，数字束缚对青少年来说是一种极其常见的经历，可能对男孩的影响更大。数字束缚与抑郁症状没有前瞻性关联。
研究结果揭示了男孩在社交媒体体验上可能存在对其发展和健康具有重要意义的差异，而迄今为止许多探索社交媒体使用中性别差异的研究都阐明了对女孩的负面影响。男孩可能对数字环境的新社会规范有不同的认知和反应，以至于数字束缚有可能对他们的友谊和健康有害。
