The effect of social media use on adolescents' subjective well-being: Longitudinal evidence from Switzerland

Background and relevance: Problematic social media use and low subjective well-being in adolescents coincide. However, the causal evidence on the effect of (problematic) social media use on subjective well-being is inconclusive. The analysis by Orben et al. (2022: Nature Communications 13: 1649) demonstrates that the effect is moderated by age and gender, giving rise to 'developmental windows of sensitivity to social media'. In this study, we provide an update of the development of adolescents' subjective well-being and problematic social media use in Switzerland. Furthermore, we investigate, whether 'developmental windows of sensitivity to social media' apply to Switzerland.

Data and methods: For the description of trends, we use data from the survey Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC; N = 59'662, 2002-2022, age: 11-15). We identify the effect of problematic social media use on subjective well-being using HBSC trend data from 2018 to 2022 applying multiple OLS regression. To identify the causal effect of social media use on subjective well-being we exploit panel/cohort data of adolescents from the study Transitions from Education to Employment (TREE; N = 19'809, 2016-2022, age: 15-22) applying panel regression models.

Results: We demonstrate that decreases in subjective well-being coincide with increases in problematic social media use. Causal inference shows that the effect of social media use on subjective well-being only applies to females with low or middle parental educational background until the age of 18 years.

Discussion and conclusion: Our study enhances the findings of Orben et al. (2022). It reaffirms the importance of health interventions targeted at vulnerable groups.