Elsevier

Computers in Human Behavior

Volume 65, December 2016, Pages 201-209
Computers in Human Behavior

Full length article
A tool for help or harm? How associations between social networking use, social support, and mental health differ for sexual minority and heterosexual youth

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.07.051Get rights and content

Highlights

  • LGB youth use SNS for identity development and communication more than their peers.

  • SNS use for LGB identity development was linked to better mental health.

  • SNS could be used for mental health interventions among marginalized youth.

Abstract

Although use of social networking sites has been linked to both positive and negative changes in young people's mental health, it is likely that these contributions may vary based on users' motivations and social status. For sexual minority youth, for example, the sites could provide means for social support and connections with like-minded others. Accordingly, our study sought to examine the relations between sexual minority youth's social networking site use and their social support, sexual identity strength, and mental health. We conducted an online survey, sampling 146 sexual minority youth respondents (M = 21 years; SD = 2.87 years) and 477 heterosexual youth respondents (M = 20 years; SD = 2.76 years). Results indicated that although both sexual minority and heterosexual youth use social networking sites at equal rates, sexual minority youth indicated that they use sites more for identity development and social communication. Moreover, using sites for general identity expression or exploration predicted negative mental health outcomes, whereas using sites specifically for sexual identity development predicted positive mental health outcomes. These results provide greater insight into how social networking sites may impact the mental health of marginalized groups, and provide a framework for understanding differences in social networking site use by sexuality.

Section snippets

Social media and sexual minority youth

Sexual minority youth can be defined as adolescents and young adults who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, sexually queer or fluid, or otherwise do not identify as heterosexual. In general, it is known that sexual minority youth (gay and bisexual males, in particular) use the Internet to increase their self-awareness regarding their sexuality, learn about gay community life, communicate and meet with other gay or bisexual people, find acceptance with their sexual identity, and facilitate

Determinants of sexual minority youth's mental health

Analyses of the mental health disparities experienced between sexual minority and heterosexual youth document several important determinants of sexual minority youth's mental health outcomes. One factor is sexual minority youth's amount of social support. In fact, research has identified social support as the primary protective factor against negative mental health outcomes for sexual minority youth (Hatzenbuehler, 2011). A second factor noted to protect sexual minority youth's mental health is

Theoretical framework and study aims

The Media Practice Model (Steele & Brown, 1995) states that youth who are developing their identity actively seek out media that relate to aspects of their identity (e.g., their sexuality). This selective use of media results in specialized interactions that heighten, diminish, or change certain aspects of the relevant dimension of their identity. From there, youth act on these newly formed pieces of their identity with their peers, and based on the explicit and implicit social feedback they

Participants

Eight-hundred-and-seventy-six people consented to take our survey. After excluding 34 participants who were over 24 years old, and then 272 participants who were missing data on any of our key study variables related to mental health, social support, or social networking site use, our final analytic sample consisted of 570 youth ages 18–24. Excluded individuals may not have completed the survey due to lack of motivation, as compensation was not guaranteed to all participants, or because they

Attrition analysis

In preparation for our study analyses, we removed any participants who had missing data in our variables of interest or were over 24 years old (n = 53). Participants with missing data were significantly older than the analyzed sample (M = 24.75, SD = 7.06 vs. M = 19.84, SD = 1.46; F = 189.28, p ≤ 0.001). Participants with missing data had a greater actual count than expected of sexual minority persons in their sample, compared with the analytic sample that had a lower actual count than expected

Discussion

Although studies have shown that SNS are generally a valuable tool for identity development, social support, and mental health among today's youth, very little work has been done on sexual minority youth's SNS use, and none to our knowledge has compared sexual minority youth's SNS use behaviors to their mental health. Our study sought to address this gap. Based on the Media Practice Model (Steele & Brown, 1995), we predicted that sexual minority youth who use SNS in a targeted manner to

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