Young sexual minority adolescents using social technology: Self-expression and isolation (Preprint)

BACKGROUND The early adolescent years are marked by pervasive self- and peer-regulation regarding gender and sexuality norms, which can affect mental wellbeing of sexual minority teens and tweens. During this developmental period, social technology use is also emerging as a dominant mode of communication with peers, allowing for both risk and resilient behaviors that can impact wellbeing. OBJECTIVE The objectives of this exploratory study was to examine how sexual minorities in middle school use social technologies, who they are connected to and for what purposes, and associations with mental wellbeing, compared to their heterosexual peers. METHODS In our cross-sectional survey study of 1034 early adolescents aged 10-16 (average age=12.7) from 4 middle school sites in the Northeast US, we conducted an exploratory study comparing sexual minorities (24% of sample) to their heterosexual peers with an 80% response rate. RESULTS Sexual minorities report having smaller networks on their favorite social media site (B=-.57, p<.001), and were less often responding positively when friends share good news (B=-.35, p=.002) and trying to make friends feel better when sharing bad news (B=-.30, p=.014). However, sexual minorities more often reported joining a group or online community to make themselves feel less alone (B=.28, p=.003) unlike heterosexual youth. Sexual minorities had higher averages of loneliness and social isolation (B=.19, p<.001) than heterosexual students. Sexual minorities were also twice as likely to have tried to harm themselves in the past (B=.81, OR=2.24, p<.001) and more likely to have symptoms that reach the CESD-based definition of depression (B=0.15, OR= 1.16, p<.001). About 39% of sexual minorities had no one to talk to about their sexual orientation. Sexual minorities were 1.5 times more likely to have joined a social media site their parents would disapprove (B=.41, OR=1.50, p=.004) and they were more likely to report seeing online videos related to self-harm (B=.33, OR=1.39, p=.016) than heterosexual youth. CONCLUSIONS Future longitudinal studies could determine any bidirectional influences of mental wellbeing and social technology use in sexual minorities during this difficult developmental period. Given prior reports of supportive and safe online spaces for sexual minority youth, our findings demonstrated that sexual minority youth prefer to maintain small, close-knit online communities (apart from their families) to express themselves, particularly when reaching out to online communities to reduce loneliness.