Adolescent Social Communication Through Smartphones: Linguistic Features of Internalizing Symptoms and Daily Mood

The increasing use of smartphone technology by adolescents has led to unprecedented opportunities to identify early indicators of shifting mental health. This intensive longitudinal study examined the extent to which differences in mental health and daily mood are associated with digital social communication in adolescence. In a sample of 29 adolescents (ages 11-15 years), 21,365 messages were analyzed from social media, email, and texting apps across a one-month period. Lower daily mood was associated with linguistic features of self-focused attention and reduced temporal distance. Adolescents with lower average daily mood tended to send more words on a daily basis, especially on low mood days. Adolescents with higher average mood tended to use more future-focus words on low mood days. Dynamic linguistic features of digital social communication that relate to changes in mental states may represent a novel target for passive detection of risk and early intervention in adolescence.

[1]  Andrew K. Przybylski,et al.  Windows of developmental sensitivity to social media , 2022, Nature Communications.

[2]  Erik C. Nook,et al.  Linguistic measures of psychological distance track symptom levels and treatment outcomes in a large set of psychotherapy transcripts , 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[3]  Erik C. Nook,et al.  A Year in the Social Life of a Teenager: Within-Persons Fluctuations in Stress, Phone Communication, and Anxiety and Depression , 2021, Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

[4]  J. Jonides,et al.  Does Distanced Self-Talk Facilitate Emotion Regulation Across a Range of Emotionally Intense Experiences? , 2020, Clinical Psychological Science.

[5]  Laura E. Barnes,et al.  Can Text Messages Identify Suicide Risk in Real Time? A Within-Subjects Pilot Examination of Temporally Sensitive Markers of Suicide Risk , 2020, Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

[6]  M. Moreno,et al.  Measuring Interests Not Minutes: Development and Validation of the Adolescents’ Digital Technology Interactions and Importance Scale (ADTI) , 2020, Journal of medical Internet research.

[7]  Michaeline R Jensen,et al.  Annual Research Review: Adolescent mental health in the digital age: facts, fears, and future directions. , 2020, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[8]  Erik C. Nook,et al.  Use of linguistic distancing and cognitive reappraisal strategies during emotion regulation in children, adolescents, and young adults. , 2020, Emotion.

[9]  Samuel E. Ehrenreich,et al.  How Adolescents Use Text Messaging Through their High School Years. , 2019, Journal of research on adolescence : the official journal of the Society for Research on Adolescence.

[10]  Benjamin W. Nelson,et al.  Study Protocol: Transitions in Adolescent Girls (TAG) , 2019, Frontiers in Psychiatry.

[11]  Hannah R. Snyder,et al.  Pubertal Timing as a Transdiagnostic Risk for Psychopathology in Youth , 2018, Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

[12]  M. Donnellan,et al.  Depression, Negative Emotionality, and Self-Referential Language: A Multi-Lab, Multi-Measure, and Multi-Language-Task Research Synthesis , 2019, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[13]  D. Asch,et al.  Facebook language predicts depression in medical records , 2018, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[14]  Nicholas B Allen,et al.  The Effortless Assessment of Risk States (EARS) Tool: An Interpersonal Approach to Mobile Sensing , 2018, JMIR mental health.

[15]  Nicholas B. Allen,et al.  Importance of investing in adolescence from a developmental science perspective , 2018, Nature.

[16]  Tyrone D. Cannon,et al.  Looking Through Tinted Glasses: Depression and Social Anxiety Are Related to Both Interpretation Biases and Inflexible Negative Interpretations , 2018 .

[17]  Wolfgang Lutz,et al.  Linguistic analysis of patients with mood and anxiety disorders during cognitive behavioral therapy , 2018, Cognitive behaviour therapy.

[18]  Steven G. Luke,et al.  Evaluating significance in linear mixed-effects models in R , 2016, Behavior Research Methods.

[19]  Daniel M. McNeish.  Small Sample Methods for Multilevel Modeling: A Colloquial Elucidation of REML and the Kenward-Roger Correction , 2017, Multivariate behavioral research.

[20]  Nicholas S. Holtzman,et al.  A meta-analysis of correlations between depression and first person singular pronoun use , 2017 .

[21]  M. Nikolas,et al.  A Meta-Analytic Review of the Association Between Pubertal Timing and Psychopathology in Adolescence: Are There Sex Differences in Risk? , 2017, Psychological bulletin.

[22]  Helen Christensen,et al.  A Linguistic Analysis of Suicide-Related Twitter Posts , 2017, Crisis.

[23]  Erik C. Nook,et al.  A linguistic signature of psychological distancing in emotion regulation. , 2017, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[24]  Johannes Zimmermann,et al.  First-person Pronoun Use in Spoken Language as a Predictor of Future Depressive Symptoms: Preliminary Evidence from a Clinical Sample of Depressed Patients. , 2016, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy.

[25]  E. Nelson,et al.  Social re-orientation and brain development: An expanded and updated view , 2015, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.

[26]  Johannes Zimmermann,et al.  Me, myself, and I: self-referent word use as an indicator of self-focused attention in relation to depression and anxiety , 2015, Front. Psychol..

[27]  Munmun De Choudhury,et al.  Identity Management and Mental Health Discourse in Social Media , 2015, WWW.

[28]  Katherine J. Lee,et al.  The rise of multiple imputation: a review of the reporting and implementation of the method in medical research , 2015, BMC Medical Research Methodology.

[29]  Dawn Y. Brinkley,et al.  The BlackBerry Project: The Hidden World of Adolescents' Text Messaging and Relations With Internalizing Symptoms. , 2015, Journal of research on adolescence : the official journal of the Society for Research on Adolescence.

[30]  O. Ayduk,et al.  This too shall pass: temporal distance and the regulation of emotional distress. , 2015, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[31]  James J. Gross,et al.  Emotion, Emotion Regulation, and Psychopathology , 2014 .

[32]  D. Bates,et al.  Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4 , 2014, 1406.5823.

[33]  G. Margolin,et al.  Growing Up Wired: Social Networking Sites and Adolescent Psychosocial Development , 2014, Clinical child and family psychology review.

[34]  Julie A Simpson,et al.  Introduction to multiple imputation for dealing with missing data , 2014, Respirology.

[35]  Johannes Zimmermann,et al.  The way we refer to ourselves reflects how we relate to others: Associations between first-person pronoun use and interpersonal problems , 2013 .

[36]  Herman Aguinis,et al.  Best-Practice Recommendations for Estimating Cross-Level Interaction Effects Using Multilevel Modeling , 2013 .

[37]  L. Somerville.  The Teenage Brain , 2013 .

[38]  E. Crone,et al.  Understanding adolescence as a period of social–affective engagement and goal flexibility , 2012, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[39]  Alice T. Sawyer,et al.  EMOTION DYSREGULATION MODEL OF MOOD AND ANXIETY DISORDERS , 2012, Depression and anxiety.

[40]  Stef van Buuren,et al.  MICE: Multivariate Imputation by Chained Equations in R , 2011 .

[41]  E. Walker,et al.  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , 2013 .

[42]  James L Peugh,et al.  A practical guide to multilevel modeling. , 2010, Journal of school psychology.

[43]  A. Arntz,et al.  Word use of outpatients with a personality disorder and concurrent or previous major depressive disorder. , 2010, Behaviour research and therapy.

[44]  N. Allen,et al.  Mindful emotion regulation: An integrative review. , 2009, Clinical psychology review.

[45]  R. Kessler,et al.  The descriptive epidemiology of commonly occurring mental disorders in the United States. , 2008, Annual review of public health.

[46]  R. Ryan,et al.  Mindfulness: Theoretical Foundations and Evidence for its Salutary Effects , 2007 .

[47]  R. Larson,et al.  Emotional development in adolescence: what can be learned from a high school theater program? , 2007, Child development.

[48]  L. Ried,et al.  Missing data on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale: a comparison of 4 imputation techniques. , 2007, Research in social & administrative pharmacy : RSAP.

[49]  K. Rudolph,et al.  A review of sex differences in peer relationship processes: potential trade-offs for the emotional and behavioral development of girls and boys. , 2006, Psychological bulletin.

[50]  Koji Ueno,et al.  The effects of friendship networks on adolescent depressive symptoms , 2005 .

[51]  J. Pennebaker,et al.  Language use of depressed and depression-vulnerable college students , 2004 .

[52]  Olga V. Demler,et al.  The epidemiology of major depressive disorder: results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R). , 2003, JAMA.

[53]  J. Singer,et al.  Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis , 2003 .

[54]  Amanda J. Rose.  Co-rumination in the friendships of girls and boys. , 2002, Child development.

[55]  Nilly Mor,et al.  Self-focused attention and negative affect: a meta-analysis. , 2002, Psychological bulletin.

[56]  L. Abramson,et al.  Development of gender differences in depression: an elaborated cognitive vulnerability-transactional stress theory. , 2001, Psychological bulletin.

[57]  B. Birmaher,et al.  Psychometric properties of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED): a replication study. , 1999, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[58]  C. Hammen,et al.  Age and gender as determinants of stress exposure, generation, and reactions in youngsters: a transactional perspective. , 1999, Child development.

[59]  N. Ryan,et al.  Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL): initial reliability and validity data. , 1997, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[60]  M. Weissman,et al.  Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for Children , 2013 .

[61]  M M Weissman,et al.  Children's Symptom and Social Functioning Self-Report Scales Comparison of Mothers' and Children's Reports , 1980, The Journal of nervous and mental disease.