Abstract

Social media use has become common among adolescents and contains many messages about one's body such as the thin and muscular ideal. Many parents are learning how to help their adolescent learn how to use social media, and some adolescents may conceal their social media use for various reasons. 588 adolescents (ages 11-18; 77% White; 55% female) from Utah filled out surveys about their social media use and body esteem each school year. In a two-wave cross lag panel model, specific aspects of social media use such as time spent on social media, problematic media use (PMU), and social media mindfulness were used to predict body esteem. There were no significant cross-lag effects though there were several significant relationships within waves, including between PMU and body esteem at both Wave 1 and Wave 2. Concealment of social media use, age, and gender were run in separate models as moderators, and concealment of social media use was found to be a significant moderator between body esteem Wave 1 and PMU Wave 2. Parents can try to create an open environment surrounding social media use to help promote healthy social media behaviors and a healthy body esteem in their adolescent.

Degree

MS

College and Department

Family, Home, and Social Sciences; Family Life

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2026-06-20

Document Type

Thesis

Keywords

body esteem, social media, problematic media use, concealment of media

Language

english

Download

Share

COinS