This Project Grant award, with a total funding of $837,718, was provided by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242). The grant will support a 2-year longitudinal study (September 2024 to September 2026) examining the bidirectional influences of adolescents' social media activity and individual characteristics on their depressive symptoms and body dissatisfaction, through the lens of social comparison theory. The study, to be...
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) awarded a Project Grant under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to Rutgers, The State University. The $469,159 grant, with a start date of Sep 11, 2024 and an end date of Sep 10, 2026, will fund a research study examining the bidirectional relationships between positive and negative social media use and suicidal ideation among high-risk adolescents. The study will use intensive monitoring approaches, including smartphone...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) provides $1,086,194 to conduct a longitudinal study on how adolescents' social media use and beliefs contribute to the development of internalizing symptoms like depression and anxiety. The study, led by Rhode Island Hospital, will recruit 200 youth aged 13-16 and use an online experimental eye-tracking task to identify social media experiences that...
This federal Project Grant award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) under CFDA 93.242 - Mental Health Research Grants provides $759,581 to The Mclean Hospital Corporation to conduct research on harnessing smartphones for real-time detection of affective disturbances and future depression risk in adolescents. The key products and services to be delivered under this award include: Using a personalized machine learning approach to accurately predict states of high negative affect...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Mental Health (CFDA 93.242 - Mental Health Research Grants) will provide $2,821,841 to the University of California, Irvine to conduct a 4-year study on the interplay between social media use and mental health in early adolescence. The research aims to: Advance discovery related to bi-directional influences between social media engagement and mental health symptoms in 11-15 year olds. Experimentally test whether restricting or scaffolding...
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) awarded a Project Grant (R21MH136378) under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to The Ohio State University for $196,875.00. This award will fund a 2-year study on "Digital Monitoring of Emotion Regulation and Suicidal Ideation among Individuals at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis." The project aims to use ecological momentary assessment, wearable sensors, and smartphone-based technology to study emotion regulation...
This federal Project Grant award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242), supports a longitudinal study examining the relationships between preteen girls' mental health and their social media experiences. The $1,041,082 award will fund a 5-year study recruiting 250 girls ages 10-11 to assess their mental health, social media use, rejection sensitivity, and pubertal development over three annual assessments. The study aims...
This federal Project Grant award of $700,708.00 from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) will support research to understand the bidirectional relationship between adolescents' online engagement and their mental and behavioral health. The project, titled "Online and Offline Multiverse Spillover: Mapping the Ecology of Youth Mental Health," will recruit 450 adolescents aged 13-15, including an overrepresentation of...
This federal Project Grant award, valued at $606,480.00 and provided by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (CFDA 47.075) program, supports research examining the impact of social media use on the mental health and academic achievements of adolescents. The research team at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) will conduct an experimental study, randomly assigning adolescents to a treatment group that receives incentives to reduce social...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) provides $792,441 to The Mclean Hospital Corporation to conduct research tracking the dynamic trajectory of behavioral, physiological, and neurobiological stress responses in female adolescents at high and low familial risk for depression. The study aims to investigate changes in default mode network-central executive network (DMN-CEN) dynamic properties,...
MOBILE SCREEN TIME AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS - PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT IN LINE WITH THE FUNDING GOALS OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH AND PAR-18-714, THIS APPLICATION PROPOSES A RESEARCH PROJECT THAT INVESTIGATES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SMARTPHONE USE, SOCIAL MEDIA NEEDS, AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS. COLLEGE STUDENTS TODAY ARE SUFFERING MORE THAN EVER FROM DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS, FINDING IT DIFFICULT TO FUNCTION, AND RISKING CHRONIC OR RECURRENT DISORDERS AND LONGSTANDING MORBIDITY. DESPITE THE IDENTIFICATION OF VARIOUS RISK FACTORS IN THE LITERATURE, THE CAUSAL MECHANISMS ARE NOT WELL UNDERSTOOD. RECENT RESEARCH SUGGESTS THAT EXCESSIVE MOBILE SCREEN TIME MAY BE LINKED WITH DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS, AS WELL AS OTHER PHYSICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL, AND NEUROLOGICAL ADVERSE CONSEQUENCES. THE MAJORITY OF PUBLISHED STUDIES, HOWEVER, OCCURRED OUTSIDE OF THE UNITED STATES, USED A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY DESIGN, OR FOCUSED SOLELY ON SMARTPHONE ADDICTION AS OPPOSED TO SCREEN TIME, SO A GAP REMAINS IN OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCREEN TIME AND DEPRESSION. THIS STUDY WILL TEST IF OBJECTIVE MEASURES OF MOBILE PHONE SCREEN TIME, THROUGH THE COLLECTION OF SUBMITTED SCREENSHOTS, APP USAGE, AND SOCIAL MEDIA NEEDS, ARE ASSOCIATED WITH CHANGE IN DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS IN A COHORT OF U.S. COLLEGE STUDENTS. AT THE END OF THIS PROJECT, THE RESEARCH TEAM WILL HAVE: A) IDENTIFIED CONSISTENT PATTERNS OF OBJECTIVE MEASURED MOBILE SCREEN TIME, APP USAGE, AND SOCIAL MEDIA NEEDS; B) ASSESSED ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN THOSE PATTERNS WITH EXISTING LEVELS OF DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS IN A CROSS- SECTIONAL ANALYSIS; AND C) DETERMINED IF THOSE PATTERNS ARE PREDICTIVE OF LONGITUDINAL CHANGES IN DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS. THE USE OF OBJECTIVE SCREEN TIME MEASURES IS AN INNOVATIVE, FEASIBLE, AND LESS BIASED WAY TO MEASURE PATTERNS OF MOBILE SCREEN USE AND APP USE AMONG THE U.S. COLLEGE STUDENT POPULATION. MOREOVER, THIS WILL BE THE FIRST PROSPECTIVE, OBSERVATIONAL STUDY EVALUATING THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN MOBILE SCREEN TIME AND CHANGES IN DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS. UNDERSTANDING RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PATTERNS OF SCREEN TIME AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS WILL ALLOW CLINICIANS AND RESEARCHERS IN FUTURE NIH-FUNDED STUDIES TO: 1) BETTER, MORE OBJECTIVELY IDENTIFY COLLEGE STUDENTS AT HIGH RISK FOR DEPRESSION; 2) DEVELOP FURTHER UNDERSTANDING OF THE ROLE OF MOBILE SCREEN TIME IN THE ETIOLOGY OF DEPRESSION; AND 3) ULTIMATELY IMPLEMENT TARGETED MOBILE-HEALTH INTERVENTIONS TO ADDRESS COLLEGE STUDENT DEPRESSION. FURTHER, UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH ASSISTANTS INVOLVED IN THE STUDY WILL GAIN FIRSTHAND EXPERIENCE IMPLEMENTING ONLINE DATA COLLECTION, EXECUTING A PROSPECTIVE COHORT STUDY, AND APPLYING INTERMEDIATE AND ADVANCED STATISTICAL TESTS; THEY WILL ALSO BE AUTHORS ON PEER-REVIEWED MANUSCRIPTS AND PRESENT AT RELEVANT CONFERENCES.