Key Findings
- Social pressures, developmental changes, and modern social media environments interact to increase risk for body image concerns and depression in adolescent girls
- Societal emphasis on women’s appearance increases preoccupation with their self-image, leading to depression risk
- Increased attention to peer feedback in adolescence exacerbates this worry in younger girls
- The modern social media environment creates a “perfect storm” for preoccupation with self-image
The modern life of teenagers starkly differs from what it was just years ago, let alone decades. With social media becoming increasingly important in the daily life of youth, novel research perspectives are needed to understand how digital environments impact mental health. For her research on adolescent social media use, self-image, and mental health, FABBS is delighted to name Dr. Sophia Choukas-Bradley an Early Career Award winner. Dr. Choukas-Bradley was nominated by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) and was recently interviewed by FABBS to discuss her research and its implications.
Dr. Choukas-Bradley received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Pittsburgh University. Her research examines how adolescent social media use affects their self-image and mental health issues like depression.
Dr. Choukas-Bradley’s research interests took shape during graduate school, informed in part by her work as a therapist, where she saw firsthand how girls and women spoke about social media and body image as core to their relationships and mental health. She has since developed an impressive research program studying factors leading to this risk for adolescent girls. Mainly, she investigates a conceptual model detailing how societal pressures and developmental changes interact with social media to create a “perform storm” for mental health problems in adolescent girls.
Her work extends decades of research on sociocultural emphases on women’s physical appearance into the modern social media environment. Dr. Choukas-Bradley’s work suggests that, since girls receive constant feedback about the importance of their appearance, they become preoccupied with how they present on social media. As one example, when adolescents attend social gatherings, they may feel preoccupied with how they will look in pictures taken and posted to social media, rather than enjoying themselves. To conduct this research, Dr. Choukas-Bradley developed a novel scale – the Appearance-Related Social Media Consciousness Scale (ASMC) – that assesses individuals’ focus on their social media appearance. The ASMC has since been widely cited and translated to several languages.
Her research also underscores how preoccupation with social media image is exacerbated by developmental factors. Puberty initiates changes in the brain that make peer judgement and perceived social status highly salient. As a result, adolescents are especially sensitive to peer feedback.
These social and developmental processes influence how adolescents engage with social media, a highly visual environment with constant, permanent, and quantifiable peer feedback (e.g., ‘likes’, comments, and reposts). Adolescents are inherently drawn to the social nature of social media. Yet, Dr. Choukas-Bradley has shown that children who pay more attention to social media images (of themselves and others) have increased risk for body image concerns and ultimately depression. These developmental sensitivities – especially pronounced in adolescent girls – amplify the pressure, creating a “perfect storm” for mental health vulnerability.
“The Perfect Storm Framework”: Developmental–Sociocultural Framework of Adolescent Girls’ Social Media Use, Body Image Concerns, and Mental Health (Choukas-Bradley et al., 2022; Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review).
To combat this risk, Dr. Choukas-Bradley is dedicated to applied research and public service to promote healthy social media use. She is currently collaborating with the Harvard University Center for Digital Thriving to examine the effectiveness of a revised school-based program that teaches adolescents healthy social media use. The revised program incorporates values-based approaches intended to increase motivation in youth. It has the potential for widespread reach, as over one million teachers have used the existing educational program.
Furthermore, Dr. Choukas-Bradley is a key contributor to several health advisories from the American Psychological Association on social media use. These health advisories summarized the science on the risks, benefits, and features of social media use for youth, and spurred a report from the Surgeon General on youth social media use. She also has been interviewed for prominent public outlets, such as the New York Times and Washington Post.
Overall, Dr. Choukas-Bradley is an esteemed scientist with an impactful research program studying how modern digital environments impact children’s mental health. She is passionate about using her research for public benefit by promoting science-based policymaking and the education of youth, parents, and teachers. Her research that seeks to improve children’s mental health is dependent on funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Dr. Choukas-Bradley’s work is critical for promoting healthy social media use in children, and she is well-deserving of the FABBS Early Career Award.
Potential for Future Impact
- Understand specific aspects of the social media environment that may harm youth mental health
- Large-scale education of children, parents, and teachers on habits for healthy social media use
- Translate science into evidence-based policymaking to reduce risks of social media use for children
