Who might flourish and who might languish? Adolescent social and mental health profiles and their online experiences and behaviors

Extant research has identified associations between social media and internet use on the social and mental wellbeing of adolescents. While associations are clear, less apparent is why some adolescents respond and behave differently to the risks and benefits associated with social media use. Specifically, a paucity of work has examined how mental (i.e. anxiety and depression) and social (i.e. peer acceptance) factors work together to impact technology use, behaviors, and experiences. Thus, the purpose of this study was to (a) use latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify adaptive and maladaptive adolescent social and mental health profiles and (b) examine the links between these profiles and demographic variables, time spent online, reasons for going online, privacy-/oversharing-related behaviors, and cyberbullying and victimization instances. Among a sample of grades 6 and 7 students (n = 671), we examined students' reports of social acceptance, depression, and anxiety. Using LPA, we identified three profiles of social and mental health: a flourishing profile (high social acceptance, low depression, and low anxiety), a moderate profile (average social acceptance, above average depression, above average anxiety), and a languishing profile (low social acceptance, high depression, and high anxiety). Findings showed significant differences across the profiles in relation to several sociodemographic factors and online behaviors.