Taking the good with the bad?: Social Media and Online Racial Discrimination Influences on Psychological and Academic Functioning in Black and Hispanic Youth

Though increasing attention is being paid to adolescents’ social media use, racially/ethnically-marginalized youth remain under-represented in that literature, and the effect of social media and its mechanism on these youth remain unclear. This study examined the effects of social media use on Black and Hispanic youth’s psychological and academic functioning, with an attempt to investigate the role of online racial discrimination in accounting for these associations. Participants consisted of 356 Black and Hispanic youth (Mage = 16.01 years, SD = 1.60), and 78% female. The findings revealed a positive association between social media use and academic self-efficacy. A negative indirect association also emerged where social media use was associated with more exposure to vicarious, but not individual, online racial discrimination, which was related to more depressive symptoms and in turn lower academic self-efficacy. There was no direct effect of social media use on Black and Hispanic youth’s anxiety symptoms, but its effect occurred indirectly via both individual and vicarious online racial discrimination. There was no evidence of group differences between Black and Hispanic youth. The findings confirm that social media is a space that proffers positive and negative effects on adolescents’ psychological and academic functioning, suggesting the need for unique protections for racially/ethnically marginalized youth as they explore these online environments.