COVID information and masking behaviors in U.S. adolescents: Findings from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study

Abstract

Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to health misinformation and are at risk for suboptimal adherence to protective health behaviors in the COVID-19 pandemic. Guided by factors consistent with the theories of planned behavior and rumor transmission, this study sought to analyze the impact of multiple information sources, including social media, television media, internet and parental counseling, on masking behaviors in adolescents. Responses from the December 2020 COVID-19 survey, representing 4,106 U.S. adolescents ages 12–14 from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD) were analyzed. The majority of parents (61.1%) reported counseling their children on the importance of wearing masks all the time in the past week. A minority of adolescents reported more than one hour of daily exposure to COVID-19 related information on social media (9.1%), the internet (4.3%) and television (10.2%). In unadjusted and adjusted models, greater frequency of parental counseling and exposure to COVID-19 television or social media were associated with 'always masking' behaviors. Our findings provide support for the importance of parent counseling and suggest that social media and television may overall support rather than dissuade protective COVID-19 health behaviors in adolescents.