Teenagers and texting: a multimethod examination of social support in adolescent friends' text messages and associations with adjustment

The National Institute of Mental Health awarded the University of Missouri System $143,215 on November 3, 2025, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to support a multimethod examination of social support in adolescent friends' text messages and associations with adjustment.

The research will analyze how adolescent friends provide social support to each other through text message conversations and how specific support processes in digital contexts relate to adolescent well-being, including friendship quality and depressive symptoms. The project implements a coding system previously used for in-person observation of social support interactions on adolescent text message conversations, with additional codes specific to digital communication such as emojis and time to reply. Three specific aims are proposed: examining associations between types of responses (positive responses, negative responses, emojis, time to reply) that adolescents receive from friends following problem disclosures in text messages and adolescents' friendship quality and depressive symptoms; examining how responses that adolescents provide in support of friends' problem disclosures relate to adolescents' own depressive symptoms and friendship quality; and assessing interactions between positive and negative responses to determine whether negative responses attenuate benefits of positive responses, including gender and age differences.

Work is performed at the University of Missouri System in Columbia, Missouri, with a period of performance from November 3, 2025, through November 30, 2026. The award is classified as a Project Grant.

Abstract

Broad objectives: the proposed research will examine how the specific ways adolescent friends provide social support to each other in text message conversations are associated with their perceived friendship quality and emotional adjustment (i.e., depressive symptoms). Though past research has emphasized the importance of high-quality social support for adolescents' adjustment, less is known about how specific support processes in digital contexts relate to adolescent well-being. The project will involve multimethod data collection with adolescent friend dyads and aims to increase understanding of how friends' texting behaviors relate to positive and negative adjustment outcomes in adolescence. Specific aims: three specific aims are proposed. For each aim, a coding system previously used for in-person observation of social support interactions will be implemented on adolescent friends' text message conversations. Additional codes specific to digital communication (i.e., emojis, time to reply) will be added to this original coding system. I will examine the associations between the types of responses (i.e., positive responses, negative responses, emojis, and time to reply) adolescents receive from their friends following problem disclosures in text messages and adolescents' friendship quality and depressive symptoms (aim 1A). I will also examine how these types of responses that adolescents provide for support in response to friends' problem disclosures in text message conversations relate to adolescents' own depressive symptoms and friendship quality (aim 1B). Interactions between positive and negative responses will also be examined to assess whether receiving or providing negative responses attenuates any benefits of receiving or providing positive responses (aim 2). Finally, gender and age differences in these associations will be tested (aim 3). Method: data will be collected from same-gender friend dyads (n = 200 adolescents; 100 dyads) between 14 and 18 years old. Participants will complete surveys on their friendship quality and emotional adjustment and two weeks of text messages exchanged between the friends will be collected. Text message data will be coded for statements in which adolescents discuss personal problems and the specific ways friends respond to these problem statements. Significance: the proposed research will use a unique multimethod design to promote understanding of how adolescent friends' supportive interactions in digital contexts relate to friendship and emotional adjustment. The findings of the proposed research aims can inform social and behavioral interventions among adolescents and identify behaviors associated with greater risk for negative adjustment outcomes. Training goals: the applicant will acquire training in collection and analysis of smartphone data of technology-mediated communication (goal 1), enhance her skills in advanced statistical analyses used for dyadic data analysis (goal 2), and will acquire additional professional development skills (goal 3). These training goals will support the applicant's larger career goals of becoming an independent researcher in adolescent peer relationships, technology use, and adolescent adjustment.