FSOS assistant professor awarded $2.7+ million National Institutes of Health grant
Xiaoran Sun, assistant professor of Family Social Science, has been awarded a National Institutes of Health grant entitled, "Adolescents' Social Media Management Strategies: Bidirectional Links to Objective Social Media Use and Mental Health Outcomes." (1R01MH138929). The grant is a 4-year award funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, NIMH, for a total amount of $2,750,433.
Six University of Minnesota faculty members from four departments will collaborate on the research project. Sun is the Principle Investigator (PI) and co-investigators include: Jodi Dworkin, professor and extension specialist, and Timothy Piehler, associate professor, both in FSOS; Meredith Gunlicks-Stoessel, associate professor, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, UMN Medical School; Ju Sun, assistant professor, Computer Science & Engineering, College of Science and Engineering; and Kyle Nickodem, director of CEHD Research Methodology Consulting Center. Researchers from Stanford University will collaborate on this project through a sub-award.
Despite vigorous discussion about the negative impact that social media has on adolescent mental health, significant knowledge gaps have resulted in unclear, conflicting, and possibly even counterproductive measures to help adolescents manage social media use and improve well-being. Little objective, accurate data exist about how adolescents use social media. This awarded project proposes addressing these crucial gaps by identifying how adolescents manage their social media use over time. One of the key methods researchers plan to use is the Screenomics approach to obtain objective, detailed measures of adolescents’ social media use.
Screenomics is an established, proven secure and feasible method that collects and analyzes continuous screenshots and associated metadata from participants’ smartphones. The research team plans to identify adolescents’ social media management strategies (SMMS) for 5 social media domains: access, timing, duration, risky content, and risky social relations.
"Limited research and our pilot data suggest that adolescents are keenly aware of the risks of social media and adopt various strategies to manage exposure and interactions," says Dr. Sun. "However, more research is urgently needed on what SMMS adolescents adopt and what effects SMMS have on their social media use and on mental health."
The research will fill critical gaps in a comprehensive understanding of multiple SMMS employed by adolescents. The mixed-method approach integrating Screenomics will provide an unprecedented detailed and comprehensive lens into adolescents’ digital lives. SMMS and social media indicators associated with mental health outcomes will offer practical solutions to maximize benefits and minimize risks of social media and help researchers develop feasible, effective intervention programs that adolescents will use.
Sun to bring screenomics expertise to multi-institution study
Dr. Sun also joins researchers from Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin in another recently awarded, NIMH-funded, five-year study on understanding how adolescents' social media use affects their mental health particularly among racially/ethnically minoritized youth (1R01MH136979).
Dr. Sun is a co-investigator of "Social Media Use and Mental Health among Racially/Ethnically Minoritized Adolescents" with the goal to understand more deeply how adolescents' social media use affects their mental health - particularly among racially/ethnically minoritized youth who - as a group - have been understudied.