Paper Info
Title
The digital footprints of adolescent depression, social rejection and victimization of bullying on Facebook.
Abstract
Online Social Networking Sites (SNSs) are immensely popular, especially among adolescents. Activity on these sites leaves digital footprints, which may be used to study online behavioral correlates of adolescent psychological distress and to, ultimately, improve detection and intervention efforts. In the present work, we explore the digital footprints of adolescent depression, social rejection, and victimization of bullying on Facebook. Two consecutive studies were conducted among Israeli adolescents (N = 86 and N = 162). We collected a range of Facebook activity features, as well as self-report measurements of depression, social rejection, and victimization of bullying. Findings from Study 1 demonstrate that explicit distress references in Facebook postings (e.g., "Life sucks, I want to die") predict depression among adolescents, but that such explicit distress references are rare. In Study 2, we applied a bottom-up research methodology along with the previous top-down, theory driven approach. Study 2 demonstrates that less explicit features of Facebook behavior predict social rejection and victimization of bullying. These features include 'posts by others', 'check-ins', 'gothic and dark content', 'other people in pictures', and 'positive attitudes towards others'. The potential, promises and limitations of using digital Facebook footprints for the detection of adolescent psychological distress are discussed.
Year
DOI
Venue
2019
10.1016/j.chb.2018.09.025
Computers in Human Behavior
Keywords
Field
DocType
Adolescents,Digital footprints,Depression,Social rejection,Bullying,Social networking sites
Social psychology,Distress,Social network,Social rejection,Psychology,Research methodology
Journal
Volume
ISSN
Citations 
91
0747-5632
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
13
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Yaakov Ophir131.06
Christa S. C. Asterhan27111.35
Baruch B. Schwarz319020.36