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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (36 results)

  • Article
  • Peer Reviewed
UC Irvine Previously Published Works (2015)
Children from low-income families are at heightened risk for a number of poor outcomes, including depression, antisocial behavior, poor physical health, and educational failure. Growing up in poverty is generally seen as toxic for children. However, less is known about how the "economic distance" between children and their peers influences behavior and health. This article examines how both poverty and the growing divide between low-income children and their peers may be influencing low-income children's life chances. Among wealthy nations, children in countries with higher levels of income inequality consistently fare worse on multiple indices of health, educational attainment, and well-being. New research also suggests that low-income children may be experiencing worse outcomes, and a form of "double disadvantage," when they live and attend school alongside more affluent versus similarly positioned peers. The role of subjective social status in explaining why some low-income children appear to suffer when growing up alongside more affluent peers is explored, alongside a call for additional research focused on how children come to understand, and respond to, their perceived social status. (PsycINFO Database Record
    Cover page: Income Inequality and the Developing Child: Is It All Relative?
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UC Irvine Previously Published Works (2019)
    The promise of digital tools and devices for spurring new discoveries in adolescence research is enticing. Notably, this special section draws attention to many of the advantages that mobile and wearable devices offer for ambulatory assessment research, which have now been realized. Despite such progress, digital tools have not yet delivered on their predicted revolution of adolescent health research. I offer four reasons for why digital devices have fallen short of this predicted promise. For each barrier, I suggest parallel strategies for ensuring adolescent research benefits from Ambulatory Assessment advances. To avoid being left behind, adolescence scholarship must develop in time with innovations in digital devices and platforms, which are moving forward to support basic science and interventions in mental health.
      Cover page: Why Digital Tools Have Not Yet Revolutionized Adolescent Health Research and What We Can Do
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UC Irvine Previously Published Works (2017)

      Background

      Young people exposed to violence are at increased risk for mental health and behavioral problems. However, very little is known about the immediate, or same-day, associations between violence exposure and adolescents' mental health symptoms or whether daily symptom or behavioral reactivity marks future problems.

      Methods

      Young adolescents were assessed three times a day for 30 consecutive days using mobile-phone-based Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) (N = 151 adolescents). Over 12,500 assessments and 4,329 person days were obtained via the EMA. Adolescents were recruited from low-income neighborhoods based on parent-reported risk for externalizing symptoms. Mental health symptoms were assessed via parent and child report at baseline, multiple times per day via EMA assessments of the adolescents, and again 18 months later when 93% of the adolescents were reinterviewed.

      Results

      Results from multilevel models illustrated that young adolescents were more likely to experience symptoms of anger (OR = 1.74, CI: 1.31-2.30), depression (OR = 1.66, CI: 1.26-2.19), and conduct problems (OR = 2.63, CI: 1.71-4.04) on days that they were exposed versus not exposed to violence. Increases in depressive symptoms were also observed on days following violence exposure (OR = 1.46, CI: 1.09-1.97). Adolescents with the highest levels of violence exposure across the 30-day EMA were less behaviorally reactive to violence exposures in daily life, and heightened behavioral reactivity predicted increased risk for substance use across early adolescence.

      Conclusions

      Findings support the need to focus on both the immediate and long-term associations between violence exposure and adolescents' mental health and behavior. Results also suggest that heightened behavioral reactivity during early adolescence may signal emerging substance use problems.
        Cover page: Violence exposure is associated with adolescents' same‐ and next‐day mental health symptoms
        • Article
        • Peer Reviewed
        UC Irvine Previously Published Works (2023)
        Fears that digital technologies harm adolescents' mental health abound; however, existing research is mixed. This study examined how perceived technological impairment (i.e., perceptions of digital technology interfering with daily life) related to psychological distress across five years in adolescence. A latent curve model with structured residuals was applied to disentangle between-from within-person associations, in which it was tested whether (a) adolescents who increased in their perceptions of technological impairment over time also increased in psychological distress (between-person) and (b) if an adolescent who reported greater perceptions of technological impairment relative to their underlying trajectory at one wave consequently reported greater distress at the subsequent wave (within-person). These associations were tested in a sample of 2104 adolescents (Mage = 12.36; 52% girls; 48% Non-White). Perceived technological impairment and psychological distress increased together over time. Girls and older adolescents (13-15 at baseline) reported greater initial levels of perceived impairment. Younger adolescents (9-12 at baseline) increased more steeply in perceived impairment over time. There was no evidence of longitudinal within-person associations. The findings suggest that although there is evidence of between-person associations in which increases in perceived technological impairment coincide with increases in psychological distress, the absence of within-person associations cautions against a cause-and-effect narrative between digital technology use and mental health.
          Cover page: Trajectories of Perceived Technological Impairment and Psychological Distress in Adolescents
          • Article
          • Peer Reviewed
          UC Irvine Previously Published Works (2020)
          Adolescents are spending an increasing amount of their time online and connected to each other via digital technologies. Mobile device ownership and social media usage have reached unprecedented levels, and concerns have been raised that this constant connectivity is harming adolescents' mental health. This review synthesized data from three sources: (a) narrative reviews and meta-analyses conducted between 2014 and 2019, (b) large-scale preregistered cohort studies and (c) intensive longitudinal and ecological momentary assessment studies, to summarize what is known about linkages between digital technology usage and adolescent mental health, with a specific focus on depression and anxiety. The review highlights that most research to date has been correlational, focused on adults versus adolescents, and has generated a mix of often conflicting small positive, negative and null associations. The most recent and rigorous large-scale preregistered studies report small associations between the amount of daily digital technology usage and adolescents' well-being that do not offer a way of distinguishing cause from effect and, as estimated, are unlikely to be of clinical or practical significance. Implications for improving future research and for supporting adolescents' mental health in the digital age are discussed.
            Cover page: Annual Research Review: Adolescent mental health in the digital age: facts, fears, and future directions
            • Thesis
            • Peer Reviewed
            UC Irvine Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2023)

            The heterogeneity of experiences among adolescents in the digital age is often characterized by overgeneralized negative narratives regarding ubiquitous social technology use. There is limited research and practice surrounding a person-centered approach that may uncover differential impacts to development and mental health. Furthermore, as adopters of online spaces become younger, little is known about the critical transition period between childhood to adolescence, which can influence developmental trajectories in the digital age. This dissertation takes an overarching multimethod and social ecological perspective (i.e., individual, interpersonal, institutional and macrosystem) to explore early through later adolescent development and wellbeing coupled with their use of social technologies. Chapter 1 takes an individual person-centered analytic approach to investigate associations between early adolescent growth trajectories of psychosocial indicators and increased social media use across 4-years of this developmental period. This study leveraged a national sample of 6251 early adolescents (ages 9-13) in the US from the larger ABCD Study®. Results showed substantive growth of social media use and evidence of co-development with externalizing symptoms and prosocial behaviors. Girls were more likely to increase in internalizing symptoms over time, while boys decreased over this period of development. Exploratory analyses also showed differential patterns of growth across this sample of early adolescents when patterns were examined separately by racial-ethnic and family income indicators. Chapter 2 investigated interpersonal dynamics through daily measures of social belonging (i.e., with family and peers) and its links to various daily social technology engagements (i.e., communication, entertainment, content creation) over the course of a 14-day ecological momentary assessment of 388 adolescents (ages 10-17). Results showed that on days that adolescents reported greater peer social belonging they were also more likely to engage in increased use of social technology for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, adolescents who reported more psychological distress at baseline exhibited a stronger daily coupling of heightened feelings of family belonging and decreased social technology use for communication. Lastly, Chapter 3 presents a qualitative evaluation of an intergenerational Youth Advisory Board (YAB; ages 12-24) case study grounded in a positive youth development framework. This was implemented for the re-development of a co-design summer Digital Wellbeing Workshop curriculum tailored to diverse groups of middle school girls. This process evaluation showcased institutional and macrosystem level strengths and opportunities for integrating youth voices in the research and design practices for the development of digital tools that support middle school girls. The implications of the findings for each of the studies are discussed throughout the dissertation.

              • Article
              • Peer Reviewed
              UC Irvine Previously Published Works (2020)
              Adolescents are constantly connected to their devices, and concerns have been raised that this connectivity is damaging their development more generally, and their mental health in particular. Recent narrative reviews and meta-analyses do not support a strong linkage between the quantity of adolescents' digital technology engagement and mental health problems. Instead, it appears that offline vulnerabilities tend to mirror and shape online risks in ways that may further amplify mental health inequalities among youth. New approaches for supporting youth mental health, especially for vulnerable youth and those typically excluded from traditional services, are now both possible and required.
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                Cover page: Adolescent development and growing divides in the digital age
                • Thesis
                • Peer Reviewed
                UC Irvine Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2020)

                Adolescents’ rising depressive and anxiety symptoms paired with near constant use of mobile technologies, and more recently social media, has triggered concerns around this relation and synchronous trend. Yet, evidence has been limited to warrant causal effects and most prior research has examined these factors in isolation. Given that multiple factors are likely to determine both adolescents’ mental health and how they interface with technology ecosystems, there is a need for a broader understanding of how the interactions influence outcomes during this developmental period. This study utilizes data from a recent national sample of early adolescents (N = 11,875) to examine multilevel correlates of internalizing behaviors through the lens of the digital age. Analyses and interpretations are framed around a Social Ecological Framework (SEF) to evaluate and compare associations of factors across the tiered domains of the framework. These include individual factors (e.g. screen time, cognitive functioning), family factors (e.g. family conflict and parental monitoring), social factors (e.g. peer relationships), and community-level factors (e.g. neighborhood safety). Results indicate small positive associations between screen time and internalizing problem behaviors among early adolescents, yet social ecological factors such as family conflict, and neighborhood safety yielding stronger associations with internalizing behaviors. Adolescent sex and racial/ethnic difference also pose an important role in the association between screen time and mental health. The findings suggest that multiple social ecological factors beyond technology use may influence internalizing behaviors to a greater extent during early adolescence.

                  Cover page: Early Adolescents’ Wellbeing in the Digital Age: A Social Ecological Approach Based on the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study
                  • Article
                  • Peer Reviewed
                  UC Irvine Previously Published Works (2016)
                  Many young adolescents are embedded in neighborhoods, schools, and homes where alcohol and drugs are frequently used. However, little is known about (a) how witnessing others' substance use affects adolescents in their daily lives and (b) which adolescents will be most affected. The current study used ecological momentary assessment with 151 young adolescents (ages 11-15) to examine the daily association between witnessing substance use and antisocial behavior across 38 consecutive days. Results from multilevel logistic regression models indicated that adolescents were more likely to engage in antisocial behavior on days when they witnessed others using substances, an association that held when substance use was witnessed inside the home as well as outside the home (e.g., at school or in their neighborhoods). A significant Gene × Environment interaction suggested that the same-day association between witnessing substance use and antisocial behavior was significantly stronger among adolescents with, versus without, the dopamine receptor D4 seven repeat (DRD4-7R) allele. The implications of the findings for theory and research related to adolescent antisocial behavior are discussed.
                    Cover page: Witnessing substance use increases same-day antisocial behavior among at-risk adolescents: Gene–environment interaction in a 30-day ecological momentary assessment study
                    • Article
                    • Peer Reviewed
                    UC Irvine Previously Published Works (2015)
                    Close to 90% of U.S. adolescents now own or have access to a mobile phone, and they are using them frequently. Adolescents send and receive an average of over 60 text messages per day from their devices, and over 90% of adolescents now access the Internet from a mobile device at least occasionally. Many adults are asking how this constant connectivity is influencing adolescents' development. In this article, we examine seven commonly voiced fears about the influence of mobile technologies on adolescents' safety (e.g., cyberbullying and online solicitation), social development (e.g., peer relationships, parent-child relationships, and identity development), cognitive performance, and sleep. Three sets of findings emerge. First, with some notable exceptions (e.g., sleep disruption and new tools for bullying), most online behaviors and threats to well-being are mirrored in the offline world, such that offline factors predict negative online experiences and effects. Second, the effects of mobile technologies are not uniform, in that benefits appear to be conferred for some adolescents (e.g., skill building among shy adolescents), whereas risk is exacerbated among others (e.g., worsening existing mental health problems). Third, experimental and quasi-experimental studies that go beyond a reliance on self-reported information are required to understand how, for whom, and under what conditions adolescents' interactions with mobile technologies influence their still developing social relationships, brains, and bodies.
                      Cover page: Seven Fears and the Science of How Mobile Technologies May Be Influencing Adolescents in the Digital Age
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