Social Media Mechanisms Affecting Adolescent Mental Health (SoMe3)

青少年估计，他们每天上网的时间不到5个小时。这几乎相当于他们在学校的时间，英国人平均每天的在校时间为6.5小时。在过去的十年里，青少年的心理健康也大幅下降，给英国的医疗服务、社会和经济带来了巨大的压力。这让许多人担心数字化正在积极损害青少年的心理健康。然而，对于这种担忧是否有根据，我们仍然知之甚少。这是一个科学供给问题，英国皇家精神病学学院院长(“我们迫切需要对科技使用的利弊进行更多研究”)和英国首席医疗官(“……更全面的研究应该得到卫生机构和研究机构的支持。需要开发一种衡量儿童数字参与度的适当机制……”)都强调了这一点。许多关于数字化和青少年心理健康的研究都集中在社交媒体上，这是一种特别高风险的数字创新。青少年群体大量使用社交媒体(94%的16-17岁青少年拥有社交媒体档案)，并导致社会环境发生变化，这可能会放大先前存在的漏洞。例如，同伴拒绝在青春期特别突出，也是一个心理健康风险因素。社交媒体通过“赞”计数量化青少年从同伴那里得到的社会反馈，这可能会增加拒绝等社会反馈的显着性，从而增加心理健康风险(机制A)。更多的社交媒体允许持续接触同龄人，这对青少年非常有吸引力。这可能导致习惯性地使用社交媒体和自我控制失败，直接或间接地影响心理健康(机制B)。然而，研究社交媒体使用和精神疾病之间的联系的研究结果在很大程度上是不一致的，共识并没有远远超出这种联系是复杂的说法。这使得设计基于证据的建议和干预措施以应对社交媒体在社会、政策和行业中的影响(例如，《在线安全法案》)变得非常具有挑战性。我的奖学金将通过提供基础和应用研究的开创性组合来解决这个问题。我的团队将采取一种新的机械论方法，调查社交媒体对青少年心理健康影响的潜在机制(例如，机制A和B等)。我们将首先使用三个不同的科学解释(经验、算法和生物/认知)的观测数据来研究这些感兴趣的机制。然后，我们将在一项纵向研究中系统地操纵它们，以测试它们对个人心理健康的影响。这将使我们能够选择两个目标，这两个目标将在政策的第5-7年制定和部署，作为一种干预措施，允许青少年试验改变他们自己的社交媒体使用，以改善他们的心理健康。这项研究将得到与政策制定者和利益攸关方共同调查和知识交流的灵活渠道的补充，以解决政策和实践中的当前问题，以确保这项投资在整个研究金期间不断为年轻人产生积极影响。这将得到一个实习计划的支持，该计划招募来自学术研究中代表性较低背景的有才华的本科生，以帮助我的团队和政策合作伙伴进行精选的暑期项目“Sprint”。通过与年轻人和家长深入合作，将进一步调整研究成果，并在整个研究金期间进行传播。因此，我的奖学金提供的证据将被纳入有关儿童和数字化的关键国家决策，这些决策将塑造我们今天和明天成年人的生活，以及未来几十年的生活。

Adolescents estimate that they spend just under 5 hours online every day. This is almost as much time as they spend at school, with the average UK school day lasting 6.5 hours. Adolescent mental health has also declined substantially over the last decade, putting large-scale pressures on UK health services, society and the economy. This has made many concerned that digitalisation is actively damaging adolescent mental health. However, we still know relatively little about whether such concerns are warranted. This is a scientific supply issue highlighted by both the President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists ("We desperately need more research into the benefits and harms of technology use") and the UK Chief Medical Officers ("...more comprehensive research should be supported by health bodies and research institutions. An appropriate mechanism for measuring children's digital engagement needs to be developed...").A lot of research on digitalisation and adolescent mental health has focused on social media, a particularly high-risk digital innovation. Social media is used heavily by the adolescent population (94% of 16-17s have a social media profile) and introduces changes to the social environment that could amplify pre-existing vulnerabilities. For example, peer rejection is especially salient in adolescence, and a mental health risk factor. Social media quantifies the social feedback adolescents receive from peers through 'like' counts, which could increase the salience of social feedback such as rejection, and therefore increase mental health risk (Mechanism A). Further social media allows for continued access to peers, which is very attractive to adolescents. This can lead to habitual social media use and self-control failures that impact mental health directly and indirectly (Mechanism B). Results of research examining the link between social media use and mental ill health have however been largely inconsistent, and consensus has not moved far beyond statements that the link is complicated. This has made it very challenging to design evidence-based recommendations and interventions to address the impacts of social media across society, policy and industry (e.g., the Online Safety Bill). My fellowship will address this issue by delivering a ground-breaking portfolio of basic and applied research. My team will take a novel mechanistic approach, investigating the mechanisms underlying the impact of social media on adolescent mental health (e.g., Mechanisms A and B, among others). We will first study these mechanisms of interest using observational data across three distinct levels of scientific explanation (experiential, algorithmic, and biological/cognitive). We will then systematically manipulate them in a longitudinal study, to test their mental health impact on an individual level. This will allow us to select two targets that will be developed and deployed in Years 5-7 of the fellowship in both policy and as an intervention that allows adolescents to experiment with changing their own social media use to improve their mental health. This research will be complemented by an agile pipeline of co-investigation and knowledge exchange with policymakers and stakeholders to address current questions in policy and practice, to ensure this investment is continuously creating positive impact for young people throughout the fellowship. This will be supported by an internship scheme that recruits talented undergraduate students from backgrounds underrepresented in academic research to assist my team and policy partners on select summer project 'sprints'. In depth co-creation with young people and parents will further tailor research outputs and dissemination throughout the fellowship. The evidence provided by my fellowship will therefore feed into crucial national decisions about childhood and digitalisation that will shape the lives of our children today and adults tomorrow, for decades to come.