Date of Graduation

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Biology

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Biological Sciences

Advisor/Mentor

Josiah Leong

Committee Member

Sarah DuRant

Second Committee Member

Jennifer Ogle

Third Committee Member

William (Lin) Oliver III

Abstract

The rise of electronic use among younger generations has raised concerns surrounding  the developmental and behavioral effects of increasing usage. While past research has found some associations between screen time and mental health, there is less knowledge about how parenting practices influence these developmental and behavioral patterns of social media use. Our study examined longitudinal trajectories of social media use from ages 9 to 13 among 9,211 subjects at baseline, year 1, year 2 and later a complete 3-year parent questionnaire on screen time reward, limiting, and monitoring to then examine whether parenting behaviors were associated with previous social media use group membership. We obtained our data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. We then found three trajectory groups: no to very low increasing use (84.4%, n = 7,771), low increasing use (9.1%, n = 837), and high increasing use (6.5%, n = 603). We found that rewarding screen time was significantly associated with a greater chance of belonging to the high increasing social media use group (p < .05, β = 0.134), but was not associated with membership in the low increasing use group. We also found that limiting screen time was associated with a lower likelihood of being in both the high increasing use group (p < .05, β = -0.406) and lower increasing group (p < .05, β = -0.413) in comparison with the no to very low use group. Moreover, we found that tracking screen time was not significantly associated with trajectory membership, suggesting that monitoring alone may not influence social media use patterns. Our findings suggest that parenting practices that reinforce screen use, like using screen time as a reward, may be associated with higher levels of social media engagement, while monitoring behaviors by itself may be insufficient to change usage patterns. Limiting practices may also be linked to lower social media use tendencies in adolescents. These results imply the importance of considering how different parenting strategies shape adolescent media use and may inform future strategies aimed at promoting healthier electronic habits.

Keywords

screen; adolescent; media; parent; social

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