Social media experience of young people

Section A: Introduces literature on the widespread impacts of social media. It then presents a systematic review and critical appraisal of measures of the impacts of social media use amongst young people. Ten measures were identified and their psychometric properties are presented and explored. Information relating to the reliability, validity and interpretability of measures is examined. Clinical implications are discussed along with recommendations for future research.

Section B: Presents an empirical study of the development and validation of a new measure of the social media experiences of young people; the Social Media Experiences Scale (SMES). Extant literature informs the initial item development stage, which is followed by a consultation stage of a focus group with a sample of young people. The 95-item SMES is then tested in a sample of 256 UK young people (16-24 years). Factor analysis is performed and a final 20-item measure is retained. Psychometric properties are obtained and discussed in terms of their clinical and research implications. Limitations of the research are then considered.