Enhancing adolescents’ emotion regulation in the social media context: a cluster randomized controlled trial of the Vibe Check social media literacy intervention

Although the negative effect of social media use among youth on body image and eating concerns has been established, few classroom-based resources that can decrease these effects through targeting social media literacy skills have been developed. This study aimed to test the efficacy of SoMe, a social media literacy body image, dieting, and wellbeing program for adolescents, through a cluster randomized controlled trial. Participants (n = 892; Mage = 12.77, SD = 0.74; range 11–15; 49.5% male) were randomized by school (n = 8) to receive either weekly SoMe (n = 483) or control sessions (lessons as usual; n = 409) over 4 weeks in their classroom. Participants completed surveys at four timepoints (baseline, 1-week post-intervention, and 6- and 12-month follow-up) assessing body dissatisfaction, dietary restraint, strategies to increase muscles (primary outcomes), self-esteem and depressive symptoms (secondary outcomes), and internalization of appearance ideals and appearance comparison (exploratory outcomes). Modest positive intervention effects were found in dietary restraint and depressive symptoms at 6-month follow-up in girls but few positive effects emerged for boys. The findings provide only preliminary support for a social media literacy intervention, but suggest the usefulness of both identifying those who benefit most from a universally delivered intervention and the need to refine the intervention to maximize intervention effects.

Research has revealed an important role for appearance-focused, and in particular photo-based, social media in the development of body image and eating pathology. Social media literacy is a multifaceted construct involving purposeful selection and exposure to social media content and use of protective filtering (deliberately screening and interpreting information in a protective manner), as well as implementing critical skills related to understanding the unrealistic nature of social media content, limiting appearance comparisons with images, and contributing to social media (comments and images) in ways that limit the pursuit of appearance ideals. Previous work has provided partial support for these facets as related to lower levels of body image and eating concerns. However, additional conceptual and measurement work is needed to advance understanding of this protective role and how to foster social media literacy. Although data are scarce, targeting social media literacy in prevention and intervention programs may also be valuable. In this perspective piece, key features that we identify as priorities for future prevention and intervention efforts include developing interventions that target the implementation of social media skills beyond their acquisition. In addition, leveraging social media user generated content for prevention purposes would likely be useful, as would embedding micro-skill delivery within platforms.

The integration of social media into religious practices exhibits a complex dichotomy. On one side, social media is primarily driven by the principles of virality, popular appeal, and commercial interests. Conversely, religious traditions emphasize silence, peace, and tranquillity. Initially, social media served as a communication medium and enhanced religious knowledge within communities. However, its use has evolved towards cultivating personal and collective identities. The passion to increase religious knowledge and gain religious experience is disrupted by the desire for artificial physical appearances shared in social media groups. This research aims to describe and analyze the use of social media among recitation women in Tangerang, Banten. This research utilized observation, interviews, and intertextuality as data collection and analysis techniques. This study indicates that the engagement of recitation women with social media necessitates religious and social media literacy. A lack of proficiency in these areas could adversely affect the quality of social media interactions, as social media platforms are inherently non-neutral and are influenced by particular ideologies and interests. Consequently, recitation women must adopt a discerning and critical approach to assess the incoming and disseminated content on social media.

In the digital era, the forwarding of false health rumors by netizens causes secondary dissemination of information, leading to its fission-like spread and bringing serious social problems. Based on an empirical survey of Chinese netizens, this paper aims to explore how social media dependency and media literacy affect netizens' willingness to forward health rumors. Data analysis found that social media dependency has a significant positive impact on forwarding willingness, social media literacy has a significant negative impact, and social media literacy has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between social media dependency and forwarding willingness. As the level of netizens' social media literacy changes, the impact of social media dependency on the forwarding willingness is no longer a simple linear positive correlation. High social media literacy will weaken its positive promoting effect and even make it show a negative change.

Although current literature has extensively discussed media literacy processes, few theories exist explaining the role of social media literacy. Social media are used daily by a substantial number of young people and may exert an important influence on its users’ well-beings. Considering media literacy, media effects, social psychology, interpersonal communication and educational literature, a novel theoretical framework called the Social Media Literacy (SMILE) model is introduced. This framework was formulated to explain (1) how to conceptualize social media literacy, (2) how social media literacy can change the dynamics between social media and its users and (3) how participatory mediation processes result into social media literacy. The SMILE-model is illustrated against the background of the social media positivity bias. Ultimately, the newly developed guiding framework aims to stimulate more theory-driven research into the scholarly understanding of social media literacy in well-being. Such insights may especially be useful for research in the field of children, adolescents and the media.

Borobudur Temple is one of the five Indonesian super-priority destinations targeted to be the "New Bali." Wanurejo tourist village is one of the areas affected by this and is considered a buffer zone to develop. Therefore, skilled human resources are required in the use of digital technology, especially social media, to be able to promote tourism destinations extensively and to increase tourism visits. This study compared and analyzed Wanurejo tourism village activists' social media literacy levels based on socioeconomic circumstances, particularly age. In order to acquire the data, a questionnaire was used as a data collection instrument. The 87 respondents who were Wanurejo tourism village activists make up the sample for this study. Data analyses were performed using descriptive and differences analysis. The findings demonstrated that the most popular social media platforms for communication, promotion, and information retrieval were WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. Additionally, Wanurejo tourism village activists had moderate social media literacy (71.58), characterized mainly by technical mastery. Based on the characteristics of the respondents, younger tourism village activists had a better level of social media literacy than older ones. According to the latest education, a higher education level was associated with greater social media literacy. As for the aspect of gender, income, and work experience, there were no notable differences in social media literacy. Therefore, strengthening social media literacy to support tourism promotion needs to be focused on millennials and highly educated tourism village activists.

BackgroundBody dissatisfaction is a global public health issue negatively impacting young people’s mental and physical well-being, underscoring an urgent need to develop early interventions. Emerging evidence suggests that microinterventions are acceptable and effective in delivering mental health interventions. Given the popularity of video games among young people, gaming holds great promise for body image microinterventions. As such, we developed Super U Story, a stand-alone, self-paced, narrative-based adventure video game for the popular gaming platform Roblox grounded in the Tripartite Influence Model of body dissatisfaction and basic tenets of positive body image.ObjectiveThis trial evaluated the effectiveness of playing a purpose-built Roblox video game once on US children and adolescents’ state and trait body image and related outcomes. Gameplay was capped at 30 minutes.MethodsOverall, 1059 US-based girls and boys (n=460, 43.4% girls) aged 9 to 13 years (mean age 10.9, SD 1.36 years) from diverse ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographic backgrounds were recruited online via a research agency into a 3-arm, online, parallel randomized controlled trial. Participants were assigned to an intervention group, active control group (a Roblox game called Rainbow Friends 2 Story [Color Story]), or attention control group (web-based word search). Participants completed self-report assessments at baseline (1 week before the intervention and before randomization), immediately before and after intervention testing, and 1 week after the intervention. Outcomes included state measures of body satisfaction (primary outcome), mood, and body functionality and trait measures of body esteem, body appreciation, internalization of appearance ideals, and social media literacy. Data were evaluated using repeated-measure analysis of covariance controlling for baseline. Engagement and acceptability data were collected.ResultsIntervention participants showed improved state body satisfaction (F1,694=5.20; P=.02; ηp2=0.01) relative to the active control but not in comparison to the attention control. State mood, state body functionality, internalization of appearance ideals, and social media literacy showed no effects. Relative to the intervention group, the active control showed improved trait body esteem (F1,663=5.40; P=.02; ηp2=0.01) and body appreciation (F1,663=6.08; P=.01; ηp2=0.01). Exploratory analyses found that age and gender did not moderate the effects. We were unable to examine dose-response effects. Acceptability scores were good. Self-report engagement data suggested that participants experienced a highly variable and often low-dose exposure.ConclusionsThis large-scale, fully powered trial is the first to assess the effectiveness of a Roblox-based body image intervention, demonstrating the potential for disseminating microinterventions to children and adolescents on large and popular commercial platforms. Overall, playing Super U Story did not cause harm; however, evidence is lacking to suggest that it improved body image. Learnings are discussed, including psychoeducation as an intervention technique, “chocolate-covered broccoli” phenomena (ie, losing players who recognize thinly disguised educational messages), and measuring intervention engagement.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT05669053; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05669053

Adolescents are assumed to develop social media literacy (SML) through interacting with different agents, such as parents and peers. However, research exploring this assumption is lacking. The current two-wave panel study (N = 1,007) partly addressed this gap by exploring the interrelationships between perceived active parental/peer mediation and adolescents’ SML (i.e. a cognitive and an affective dimension). These links were examined within the context of the social media positivity bias. Active parental mediation at Time 1 (T1) related to one aspect of cognitive SML, awareness of the presence of the positivity bias, and affective SML at Time 2 (T2). Active peer mediation at T1 did not relate to SML on the positivity bias at T2. Awareness of the presence of the positivity bias at T1 was associated with active parental mediation at T2. No age differences were found. Results suggest that parents play a role in adolescents’ SML on the positivity bias.

In the Internet of Things era, or in the digitalization and mediatization of everything paradigm, where context awareness computing is on the rise, people are also facing a new challenge, that of being aware of the digital contexts, in all situations when surfing the internet’s ocean of row information. The emerging social media context awareness competency refers to a new emerging skill regarding the trust load people give to a specific social media context they encounter. Since it is an emergent competence, it cannot be understood as standalone. If the digital context would not be available, we would not develop such a competence. Being a competence, it must be defined by three core elements: Knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Consequently, we have operationalized the competence of social media context awareness in terms of social media literacy, social media communication process understanding, social media content impact awareness, and social media confidence. An online questionnaire was created under the Erasmus+ project Hate’s Journey, addressing a convenience sample of 206 online youth respondents from Turkey, Spain, Latvia, and Romania. Our team has computed a reliability analysis on the social media context awareness scale designed with four items referring to social media literacy (m = 3.79, SD = 1), social media communication process understanding (m = 3.77, SD = 0.9), social media content impact awareness (m = 3.88, SD = 1), and social media confidence (m = 3.45, SD = 1). Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and the Exploratory Factor Analysis demonstrated the acceptable reliability of the SMCA scale, α = 0.87. Conclusions, implications, and limitations are discussed in the context of social sustainability.

Increasingly complex and multipurpose social media platforms require digital competences from parents and adolescents alike. While adolescents grow up with social media, parents have more difficulties with them, leading to uncertainties regarding their adolescents’ social media mediation. This study contributes to parental mediation research by (1) investigating whether mediation strategies defined by previous research are also relevant for social media use, and (2) exploring whether parents’ social media literacy is connected to the choice for a certain mediation strategy, as previous research already identified other impact factors such as children’s age or family composition. Using a qualitative research design, we interviewed 14 parents and 13 adolescents from 10 families in Belgium. Results indicate that, consistent with previous research, parents in this study mostly use active mediation focusing on risks and safety on social media. However, some parents monitor their children through social media accounts specifically set up for monitoring, or specialized mobile apps. Furthermore, parents with high (mostly critical) social media literacy choose active mediation over restrictive or technical strategies, recognizing opportunities of social media and letting adolescents explore on their own.

The previous study and theory showed that social media literacy, trust, and quality of information influence public communication behaviour towards local government social media. Hence, this article analyses the relation among those three elements in the context of urban areas in Indonesia. This research uses a mixed method on sequential explanatory strategy, a collaboration of quantitative and qualitative methods conducted subsequently with dominancy on the quantitative methods. The authors selected 100 persons randomly and proportionally as the research sample. In addition, 12 persons from selected followers, social media specialists, academicians, and civil society. Research shows that social media literacy, trust, and quality information on local government social media are good, yet the issue is in the public communication behaviour towards governments' social media. Furthermore, 41.2% of those three elements simultaneously influence the communication behaviour. The most dominant variable influencing communication behaviour is media social literacy and people's trust, while the quality of information has no significant impact. This research is based on social media data in 2022 in three urban cities in Indonesia, namely Bandung, Semarang and Surabaya. They were chosen based on the categories that the local government uses social media for at least 10 years and has a high number of social media users. Keywords: Social media literacy, trust, quality of information, communication behaviour, local government.

Diabetes Mellitus (DM) prevention behavior is essential for reducing DM incidence among adolescents, a population increasingly exposed to lifestyle risks and heavily engaged with digital platforms. Social media provides a promising channel for health promotion, yet limited evidence explains how literacy in this medium supports preventive behaviors. This study aims to analyze the correlation between social media literacy and intention with DM prevention behavior among adolescent students. A cross-sectional design with purposive sampling was conducted involving 231 students aged 16 years in East Java, Indonesia. Data were collected using questionnaires measuring social media literacy, intention, and DM prevention behavior, while Spearman’s rho correlation <0.05 was applied for analysis. Descriptive findings showed that 58% of participants were female, 67.1% used more than three social media platforms, 39% accessed social media 3–4 hours daily, and 4.3% had a family history of DM. The analysis revealed significant positive correlations between social media literacy (p<0.001, r=0.325) and intention (p<0.001; r=0.305) with DM prevention behavior. Adolescents with higher literacy and stronger intentions were more likely to exhibit proactive DM prevention actions. These results demonstrate that emerging technologies, particularly social media, hold substantial potential as promotive and preventive tools for adolescent health. Enhancing social media literacy can improve adolescents’ ability to identify, interpret, and apply credible health information, supporting healthier behavioral choices. The study suggests that integrating digital health literacy into adolescent-focused programs may strengthen early preventive efforts and reduce future DM risk.

Social media literacy is assumed to protect adolescents from negative social media effects, yet research supporting this is lacking. The current three-wave panel study with a four-month interval among N = 1,032 adolescents tests this moderating role of social media literacy. Specifically, we examine between- vs. within-person relations of exposure to the positivity bias on social media, social comparison, envy, and inspiration. We find significant positive relations between these variables at the between-person level. At the within-person level, a different pattern of results occurred: higher exposure to others' perfect lives on social media was related to increased inspiration, and higher social comparison was related to increased envy, yet both associations only occurred in one of the two time intervals. Additionally, no within-person associations between exposure to positive content and envy were significant, nor between exposure and social comparison or social comparison and inspiration. These results thus seem more complex than traditional paradigms of selective and transactional media effects assume. Furthermore, multiple group tests showed that the within-person cross-lagged relation between social comparison and envy only occurred for adolescents with low affective social media literacy. The moderating role of social media literacy was not supported in any other instances. The results overall point at the need to instruct affective social media literacy to help adolescents navigate positively biased social media platforms in a healthy way.

With advancements in technology, social media has revolutionised the way farmers communicate, resulting in an increased level of shared agricultural knowledge. Therefore, this study investigates social media literacy among oil palm smallholders in East Malaysia and the association with oil palm integration practices. A survey of 194 respondents was conducted using a random sampling method. The survey questionnaire was adapted from several previous studies on social media literacy. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses, involving t-test, ANOVA, and logistic regression were conducted. Social media literacy was significantly higher among oil palm smallholders who were younger, with higher educational levels (p < 0.05). The logistic regression analysis showed that as the level of social media literacy increased, the probability for agricultural integration practices also increased (odds ratio (OR) = 1.052; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.022, 1.083). However, smallholders needed to optimise their use of social media to provide greater benefits to their agriculture. The findings of this study are useful in illustrating that interventions in social media literacy may efficiently facilitate oil palm integration. The results of this study can provide information and recommendations towards policies for the modernising of oil palm farming in Malaysia. Such studies, however, need to be further expanded by involving a larger sample of smallholders nationwide, to represent the geography of smallholders with varying levels of internet accessibility in Malaysia.

On average, 6 hours 58 minutes are spent on social media everyday by each user, and 98% of young people from ages 15 to 24 use the internet of which 96% are social media users. If used inappropriately, a social media user is at risk of poor mental health and behavioural problems. Also, Problematic social media users are vulnerable to several side effects and are more exposed to social media threats than any other user. Therefore, this study attempts to develop a preventive strategy by firstly, analysing the various approaches that address problematic social media use such as the legal, education and technology strategies. By assessing their strengths and weaknesses, the most effective approach- Social Media Literacy was identified. The second objective of this study is to address the weaknesses of all the approaches analysed, and by using public relations mechanisms, social media literacy was enhanced into a new approach called the Intrinsic Social Media Literacy, ISML. This new approach is not developed to stop other preventive approaches from addressing this issue. It is developed as the main approach in the prevention, and to some degree, the solving of problematic social media use among the young generation globally.