The effect of social media use on mental health of college students during the pandemic.

Social media is viewed to be a key contributor to worsening mental health in adolescents, as most recently reflected in a public health advisory by the US Surgeon General. We provide new evidence on the causal effects of social media on mental health of college students during the Covid-19 pandemic, exploiting unique, longitudinal data collected before the Covid-19 pandemic began and at two points during the pandemic. We find small insignificant effects of social media 4 months into the pandemic during a period of social distancing, but large statistically significant negative effects 18 months into the pandemic when colleges were mostly back to normal operations. Using rich data on substance use, exercise, sleep, stress, and social support, we find some evidence of substitution away from activities that better support mental health at later stages of the pandemic but not at early stages. We find that the negative effects of social media are mostly concentrated among socially-isolated students. Both social support and resilience protect students from the negative effects of social media use. Policy implications include regulating social media while also bolstering social support and resilience as important protective factors.

Perceived stress, mental health symptoms, and deleterious behaviors during the transition to college.

BACKGROUND: This study examined associations between different sources of chronic perceived stress and deleterious behaviors (eating disorder symptoms, insufficient sleep, and insufficient vigorous physical activity) among first-year college students. METHODS: The study used data on 885 first-year students (ages 18-20) at a large public university in North Carolina. The prevalence of deleterious behaviors was evaluated. Associations were estimated between different sources of chronic perceived stress (academic, future, peers, friendships, romantic, appearance, health, chronic illness, financial, work, family) and health behaviors after controlling for psychosocial supports and demographics. Moderating effects of gender and moderate-severe anxiety/depression symptoms were also tested. RESULTS: 19% of first-year student reported symptoms of eating disorders, 42% insufficient sleep, and 43% insufficient vigorous physical activity. Perceived chronic stress increased the odds of reporting these deleterious behaviors. These effects were not moderated by gender or moderate-severe anxiety/depression symptoms. Appearance- and health-related stress were associated with eating disorder symptoms; health- and romantic-related stress were associated with insufficient sleep; and health-related stress was associated with insufficient vigorous physical activity. LIMITATIONS: Outcomes were survey-based. The study was based on cross-sectional data from a single university, so the direction of causality cannot be determined, and more work needs to be done to determine whether this would extend to other populations.

The Effect of Social and Stress-Related Factors on Alcohol Use Among College Students During the Covid-19 Pandemic.

PURPOSE: The aim of this article is to study how Covid-19 stress-related factors and changes in social engagement during the pandemic contributed to changes in alcohol use among first-year college students. METHODS: We used data on 439 first-year students (ages 18-20) at a large public university in North Carolina both before (October 2019 to February 2020) and after (June/July 2020) the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. We evaluated changes in prevalence and days of alcohol use and binge drinking. We estimated the associations between Covid-19 stressors/stress (work reductions, health, distanced learning difficulties, perceived stress) and social engagement (perceived social support from friends, social isolation, and social distancing) after controlling for students' pre-pandemic alcohol use, social engagement, and demographic characteristics. RESULTS: We found that the prevalence of alcohol use and binge drinking in the past 30 days decreased from 54.2% to 46.0% and 35.5% to 24.6%, respectively; days of use did not change significantly. The decreases were primarily associated with reductions in social engagement. Among Covid-19 stressors/stress, only challenges with distance learning were associated with higher alcohol use among those who were already drinking prior to the pandemic. Drinking increased more among those who endorsed using substances to cope, while drinking was not associated with resilient coping. CONCLUSIONS: Unless new drinking habits are formed during the pandemic, decreases in alcohol use among college students are unlikely to be sustained as social distancing measures are removed. Colleges may want to target interventions to students who have responded to stress with increased alcohol use, partly by addressing difficulties with distance learning.

The Covid-19 pandemic and mental health of first-year college students: Examining the effect of Covid-19 stressors using longitudinal data.

PURPOSE: The Covid-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented stress to students and educational institutions across the world. We aimed to estimate the effect of the pandemic on the mental health of college students. METHODS: We used data on 419 first-year students (ages 18-20) at a large public university in North Carolina both before (October 2019-February 2020) and after (June/July 2020) the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. After evaluating descriptive data on mental health and stressors by students' demographic characteristics, we estimated the associations between Covid-19 stressors (including work reductions, health, distanced learning difficulties and social isolation) and mental health symptoms and severity controlling for students' pre-pandemic mental health, psychosocial resources, and demographic characteristics. RESULTS: We found that the prevalence of moderate-severe anxiety increased from 18.1% before the pandemic to 25.3% within four months after the pandemic began; and the prevalence of moderate-severe depression increased from 21.5% to 31.7%. White, female and sexual/gender minority (SGM) students were at highest risk of increases in anxiety symptoms. Non-Hispanic (NH) Black, female, and SGM students were at highest risk of increases in depression symptoms. General difficulties associated with distanced learning and social isolation contributed to the increases in both depression and anxiety symptoms. However, work reductions as well as Covid-19 diagnosis and hospitalization of oneself, family members or friends were not associated with increases in depression or anxiety symptoms. CONCLUSION: Colleges may be able to reduce the mental health consequences of Covid-19 by investing in resources to reduce difficulties with distance learning and reduce social isolation during the pandemic.

Religion and Depression in Adolescence.

Depression is the leading cause of illness and disability in adolescence. Many studies show a correlation between religiosity and mental health, yet the question remains whether the relationship is causal. We exploit within-school variation in adolescents' peers to deal with selection into religiosity. We find robust effects of religiosity on depression that are stronger for the most depressed. These effects are not driven by the school social context; depression spreads among close friends rather than through broader peer groups that affect religiosity. Exploration of mechanisms suggests that religiosity buffers against stressors in ways that school activities and friendships do not.

How The Timing of Grade Retention Affects Outcomes: Identification and Estimation of Time-Varying Treatment Effects.

In many countries, grade retention is viewed as a useful tool for helping students who fall behind in their achievement. We show how the effect of grade retention varies by abilities, by timing of retention and as time since retention elapses. While existing studies of grade retention also recognize the importance of studying variation by abilities and timing, the existing methods are not well-equipped to deal with the possibility that students retained at different grades differ in unobservable abilities (dynamic selection) and the effects of retention also vary by the student's abilities and the time at which the student is retained. We extend existing factor analytic methods for identifying treatment effects to control for dynamic selection in our time-varying treatment effect setting. This approach can be understood as a hybrid between a control function and a generalization of the fixed effects approach. Applying our method to nationally-representative, longitudinal data, we find evidence of dynamic selection into retention and that the treatment effect of retention varies considerably across grades and unobservable abilities of students. Our strategy can be applied more broadly to many time-varying or multiple treatment settings.