Affective reactivity to upward social comparisons rather than social media use predicts increases in early adolescents’ depressive symptoms
Andrea Irmer, Florian Schmiedek · 2026
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Description
How teens feel after comparing upward on social media, not use itself, forecasts depression growth in a 2026 diary study by Andrea Irmer and Florian Schmiedek. Daily negative feelings that spike repeatedly may pile into disorder risk. Two hundred early teens logged experiences for fourteen days.
Ages ran from ten to fourteen years, with about half the sample female. Daily logs captured media use, upward comparisons, mood, and symptom checks. Teens whose mood dipped hardest on comparison days gained depressive symptoms. That path ran through higher average negative mood across the study. Media use coupling showed no such forecast effect. Emotional response matters more than screen time.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Andrea Irmer, Florian Schmiedek |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 54297 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |