Social media use, sleep, and psychopathology in psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents

Sleep disruption among adolescents represents a major public health concern, and social media use may play an important role in affecting sleep and subsequent mental health. While prior studies of youth sleep and mental health have often focused on social media use frequency and duration, adolescents' emotional experiences related to social media have been underexplored, particularly among clinically acute populations. This study offers a preliminary investigation of associations among negative emotional experiences using social media, sleep disturbance, and clinical symptom severity in a sample of psychiatrically hospitalized youth. A sample of 243 adolescents (Mage = 15.34) completed self-report measures at a single time point. Measures assessed social media use, including frequency and duration, subjective experiences of use, and emotional responses to use, as well as sleep disturbance and clinical symptom severity, including suicidal ideation, internalizing symptoms, and attention problems. Results revealed that more frequent negative emotional responses to social media use were linked to greater sleep disturbance and higher clinical symptom severity. Furthermore, sleep disturbance mediated the relation between negative emotional responses to social media and clinical symptom severity. While gender differences were revealed in characteristics of social media use, sleep disturbance, and clinical outcomes, the associations among these constructs did not vary across gender groups. Overall, these findings highlight sleep disturbance as a potential mechanism through which negative emotional experiences on social media may impact clinical symptoms in psychiatrically vulnerable youth.