McGregor Madeline M, Li Lilian Y, Trivedi Esha, Sarkas Sarah E, Sritharan Aishwarya, Massac Lili, Durham Katherine, Allen Nicholas B, Auerbach Randy P, Shankman Stewart A
Stephen M. Stahl Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University.
Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University.
J Psychopathol Clin Sci. 2025 Jul 21. doi: 10.1037/abn0000999.
The use of dating apps among adolescents is a growing public concern. Past research, which almost exclusively relies on self-reported dating app usage, highlights an increased risk of victimization, but also opportunities to develop personal and social identity, particularly for minoritized youth. Thus, the present study used a mobile sensing app that passively tracked dating app usage over 6 months in 149 adolescents with a wide range of internalizing disorder severity. Thirty-five (23.5%) adolescents used dating apps across the 6 months (indexed by any keyboard input across dating apps), averaging 1.74 ( = 1.12, range = 1-6) apps per person. At baseline, users (vs. nonusers) were older, more pubertally mature, and more likely to identify as sexual and gender minorities. Controlling for differences in demographic characteristics using propensity score matching, users and nonusers were largely comparable in clinical characteristics, with only a few differences evident: (a) greater self-reported frequency of risky behaviors at baseline and (b) greater number of weeks meeting major depressive disorder criteria across the follow-up period. Exploratory, within-person analyses in a subset of 18 users showed that a greater number of messages sent in dating apps was associated with a greater likelihood of having (subthreshold) depression symptoms in the concurrent week. Importantly, these findings are cross-sectional, and therefore the causal direction of effects remains unclear. Overall, passive monitoring of dating behaviors affords a unique lens on socioemotional development in youth, revealing nuanced relations between dating app usage and mental health among adolescents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
青少年使用约会应用程序日益引起公众关注。以往的研究几乎完全依赖自我报告的约会应用程序使用情况，强调了受害风险的增加，但也指出了发展个人和社会身份的机会，特别是对于少数族裔青年而言。因此，本研究使用了一款移动传感应用程序，对149名内化障碍严重程度各异的青少年在6个月内的约会应用程序使用情况进行了被动跟踪。在这6个月中，35名（23.5%）青少年使用了约会应用程序（以约会应用程序上的任何键盘输入为指标），每人平均使用1.74个应用程序（标准差 = 1.12，范围 = 1 - 6）。在基线时，使用者（与非使用者相比）年龄更大，青春期更成熟，更有可能认同自己为性少数群体和性别少数群体。使用倾向得分匹配法控制人口统计学特征差异后，使用者和非使用者在临床特征上基本相当，只有一些差异明显：（a）基线时自我报告的危险行为频率更高；（b）在随访期间符合重度抑郁症标准的周数更多。对18名使用者的一个子集进行的探索性个体内分析表明，在约会应用程序上发送的信息数量越多，在同一周出现（亚阈值）抑郁症状的可能性就越大。重要的是，这些发现是横断面的，因此影响的因果方向仍不明确。总体而言，对约会行为的被动监测为青少年的社会情感发展提供了一个独特的视角，揭示了青少年约会应用程序使用与心理健康之间的细微关系。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2025美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
