Is Peer Victimization Associated With Adolescents’ Social Media Use, Engagement, Behavior, and Content?

Abstract:As a test of the poor-get-poorer hypothesis, which shows that socially anxious teens are less likely to communicate online and in turn feel less closeness to friends, this study explored whether peer victimization is similarly related to social media involvement. High-school participants (n = 307, Mage = 15.91) reported about their victimization experiences, general social media usage, Twitter engagement, and strategic safety behaviors on Twitter, and provided their Twitter content. Results show that peer victimization experiences interact with social anxiety such that teens who experience both more peer victimization and more social anxiety engage with Twitter less than all other teens. Specifically, they spend fewer minutes per day on Twitter, feel less attached to Twitter, and Tweet less in general and about social relationships in particular. These findings indicate that adolescents whom experience social risk use Twitter in different ways than others and extends the application of the poor-get-poorer model.