Social Media, Parenting, and Well-Being

One of the key challenges faced by many parents is to manage the pervasiveness of social media in adolescents’ lives and its effects on adolescents’ well-being (e.g., life satisfaction) and ill-being (e.g., depressive symptoms). Parents may manage adolescents’ social media use and social media-induced well-being and ill-being through media-specific parenting: parental actions to restrict, regulate, and discuss adolescents’ social media use. Recent evidence suggests that media-specific parenting may reduce adolescents’ anxiety and depressive symptoms and minimize the effects of cyberbullying on adolescents’ depressive symptoms. However, more robust evidence regarding the moderating role of media-specific parenting and the direction of effects has to be established to understand how parents may shape the effects of social media on adolescents’ well-being and ill-being.