Taking a nuanced look at adolescent technology use and negative affect: the protective role of preparedness.

Adolescents are online more than any other age group, with the majority of their time on social media. Increases in technology use among adolescents have heightened conversations regarding its effects on their negative affect. There have been mixed findings regarding the relationship between technology use and adolescent negative affect; some studies present a negative association or no association, and some show a positive association. To clarify this relationship, we propose moving away from asking only how much adolescents use technology to asking how and what they use it for. We employed the Multidimensional Healthy Technology Use and Social Media Habits Scale (MTECH) and adapted forms of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) in a sample of 7,234 middle and high school students to assess the extent to which students feel prepared to use technology safely and successfully and whether this impacts the association between the amount of various types of technology they use and their negative affect. We conducted eight moderated regression analyses that, in some models, revealed preparedness had a protective role in the association between technology use and negative affect. In these models, at all levels of technology use, adolescents with higher levels of preparedness experienced lower levels of negative affect than their peers; however, in some instances, this effect was diminished for those using technology with high frequency. These findings support the notion that the association between technology and negative affect is not best modeled as a direct relationship, and instead that we must consider important moderators of this complex association.

Adolescent Resilience during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review of the Impact of the Pandemic on Developmental Milestones.

This review explores the literature regarding the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the navigation of developmental milestones among adolescents, specifically those in late adolescence, across several domains of their lives. The exploration is contextualized globally, focusing on five key areas: mental health, physical health, education, peer relationships, and family relationships. Implications for practice and interventions are explored in each key area to provide recommendations for those working with adolescents, as well as future research. The changes brought about by the pandemic and the readjustment to what some have referred to as the "new normalcy" will undoubtedly have lasting effects on all areas of life for this cohort of adolescents, who have shown remarkable resilience navigating this new and unfamiliar world. These changes are synthesized, with the aim to highlight differences and similarities of the shared experiences of the pandemic globally. After exploring the current realities, this chapter goes on to outline the ways in which the experience of such a significant developmental period of one's life during the COVID-19 pandemic will have an impact on adolescents for years to come. Although it is still impossible to comprehend the long-term effects, in examining proximal effects, we can postulate distal implications and potential future effects, as well as possible ways to mitigate these implications as we transition back to more of what was experienced pre-pandemic life, from a post-pandemic experience.

Emotional Nuance: Examining Positive Emotional Granularity and Well-Being.

The focus of this review is on positive emotional granularity. Emotional granularity is the level of specificity that characterizes verbal representations of an affective experience. Although there has been research on negative emotional granularity, relatively less attention has been given to the study of positive emotional granularity. Positive emotions are theorized to motivate an individual to "broaden and build" one's scope of cognition, attention, and behavior. Distinct positive emotion concepts may provide individuals with more informational value than that provided by global mood. Indeed, individuals who are higher in positive emotional granularity report being better at coping with stressful experiences. In this review, we discuss growing research on positive emotional granularity and well-being. Issues of measurement, interventions, and considerations for future lines of research are discussed.