Social Media Rumination as the Missing Link Between Online Activity and Anxiety in Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Adolescents: An Integrative Review and Conceptual Model for the United Kingdom

Abstract

Although the use of social media is almost universal among adolescents in the United Kingdom, evidence regarding the link between social media use and anxiety has been inconsistent, indicating that psychological processes related to the use of social media may be more important than the time spent online. This integrative review seeks to explore the social media rumination process, which involves rethinking one's own posts and others' posts, as well as expected social outcomes, as a mechanism that connects social media use to adolescent anxiety, specifically for socioeconomically disadvantaged youth. The review builds on the transdiagnostic model of repetitive negative thinking, evidence from clinical psychology, developmental science, and affordance-based perspectives. Current evidence supports that rumination is a transdiagnostic risk factor for adolescent anxiety; and emerging cross-sectional, longitudinal and mixed studies provide evidence that social media rumination may act as a mediator between social media use and psychological distress. Qualitative research also reveals that adolescents often use social media as an evaluative and performative space in which they expect to receive reactions from others such as peers, friends, and family. These processes are likely to be exacerbated by socioeconomic disadvantage, which can result in chronic stress, reduced offline sources of belonging, and increased reputational concerns. It is suggested that an integrative model could be proposed in which social media rumination could account for the connections between social media use and anxiety, focusing on ruminative engagement instead of screen time in future research and prevention.