The COVID-19 Pandemic, Adolescent Media Use, and Mental Health: Comparing Relationships Among Adolescents From South Korea and the United States

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic had a detrimental impact on adolescent mental health, but few studies have explicitly compared adolescents’ mental health across countries, nor have they explored how different uses of media by adolescents in different countries may serve as protective or detrimental factors. To explore these associations, we use data collected from 958 South Korean adolescents and 1,253 United States (U.S.) adolescents in spring 2022 (ages 14–18). U.S. adolescents scored higher on anxiety and loneliness, relative to South Korean adolescents, and U.S. adolescents’ social media use frequency related positively to these variables. Conversely, South Korean adolescents’ social media use frequency was not related to anxiety or depression, and was negatively related to loneliness. Thus, social media use appears to relate detrimentally to U.S. adolescents’ mental health but relates in a more protective way to South Korean adolescents’ mental health. We discuss differential social media use and country differences to contextualize these findings.