Abstract
The Covid-19 physical distancing measures had a detrimental effect on adolescents' mental health. Adolescents worldwide alleviated the negative experiences of social distancing by spending more time on digital devices. Through a systematic literature search in eight academic databases (including Eric, Proquest Sociology, Communication & Mass Media Complete, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Pubmed, and Web of Science), the present systematic review and meta-analysis first summarized the existing evidence from 30 studies, published up to September 2021, on the link between mental health and digital media use in adolescents during Covid-19. Digital media use measures included social media, screen time, and digital media addiction. Mental health measures were grouped into conceptually similar dimensions, such as well-being, ill-being, social well-being, lifestyle habits, and Covid-19-related stress. Results showed that, although most studies reported a positive association between ill-being and social media use (r = 0.171, p = 0.011) and ill-being and media addiction (r = 0.434, p = 0.024), not all types of digital media use had adverse consequences on adolescents' mental health. In particular, one-to-one communication, self-disclosure in the context of mutual online friendship, as well as positive and funny online experiences mitigated feelings of loneliness and stress. Hence, these positive aspects of online activities should be promoted. At the same time, awareness of the detrimental effects of addictive digital media use should be raised: That would include making adolescents more aware of adverse mechanisms such as social comparison, fear of missing out, and exposure to negative contents, which were more likely to happen during social isolation and confinement due to the pandemic.
Highlights
The Covid-19 pandemic and its related containment measures unavoidably affected mental health, which can be defined as “a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community” (1)
The results indicate that the perceived COVID-19 information overload on social media increased social media fatigue and fear of COVID-19.The enormous amounts of complex information related to COVID-19 exceeded the information-processing capacity of the members of Gen Z and further hindered their ability to develop an unbiased assessment of COVID-19, which led to a higher level of fear of the coronavirus pandemic
We found that problematic smartphone use (PSU) was significantly higher during the COVID- 19 outbreak, there was no significant difference in Problematic social media sue (PSMU) across the three waves. we found positive associations between PSU/PSMU and psychological distress
Summary
The Covid-19 pandemic and its related containment measures unavoidably affected mental health, which can be defined as “a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community” (1). Mental health is most affected during adolescence, when individuals. For adolescents, the social environment is important for developing essential brain functions, selfconcept, and mental health in general (4). Physical distancing measures introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic may have had a detrimental effect on youth development. Several studies already showed that adolescent age is a risk factor for diverse mental health problems, especially during epidemic outbreaks [e.g., (4–10)]. The remaining titles and abstracts were screened by two coders according to the predefined eligibility criteria.
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