PhD student’s research addresses how adolescent social media use predicts in-person friendship networks

Shayla Brown — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 18:03:18 +0000

PhD student’s research addresses how adolescent social media use predicts in-person friendship networks Shayla Brown Wed, 02/04/2026 - 13:03

�鶹��Ƶ doctoral student Caroline Toth looks at how adolescents’ social media use is associated with the structure of their in-person friendship networks. Her research shows that friendships were more likely among youth with similar levels of problematic social media use and digital status seeking.

Photo by Getty Images

“This reflects a social network mechanism known as homophily, which is essentially love of the same, meaning that youth select friends who are similar to themselves in problematic social media use and digital status seeking. By doing this study, we're showing that friendships aren't forming at random, but being shaped in part by digital habits and values that are shared among friendship networks,” said Toth, a graduate research assistant in George �鶹��Ƶ’s Applied Developmental Psychology Program in the Department of Psychology.

Her first paper on the topic was recently published at the Journal of Children and Media.

“Adolescence is a very sensitive time for social processing. Teens are very sensitive to social cues,” said Toth, who earned her master’s degree from the same George �鶹��Ƶ program in 2021.

Caroline Toth. Photo provided.

Toth’s paper, “Problematic social media use, availability distress, and digital status seeking: Links to friendship network structure among U.S. adolescents,” explores how adolescents use social media to feel connected to others and gain social standing.

“Previous research has mainly examined links between social media use and disrupted sleep, anxiety, and depression. However, as a social networks scholar, I'm really interested in how adolescents’ online behaviors and emotional reactions to social media affect the structure of their friendship network,” Toth said.

This research is especially relevant to Generation Alpha, born between 2010 and 2024. When adolescents select friends who engage in similar problematic online behaviors, the resulting shared emotional thoughts, reactions, and behaviors can start to feel expected and encouraged within these friendship groups, said Toth.

This can be especially harmful because teens use social media to gain popularity and approval. The normalization of problematic online behaviors within friend groups makes them appear necessary for social success, explained Toth.

An example of problematic social media use is excessive use of social media to the point that it impacts your ability to focus on school or work. Within friend groups, adolescents are likely to reinforce this problematic usage because it’s what they see their friends doing. Toth emphasizes that algorithms are becoming more sophisticated and increasing adolescents’ exposure to highly engaging, emotionally charged content, keeping them constantly active online.

“It's critical that we continue to examine the constant feedback loop between the demands of the peer group and adolescents’ own emotional reactions to their online activities, so that we can help adolescents develop better coping mechanisms and survival skills for online life,” she said.

Toth states that interventions focused on improving self-regulation of social media use and emotional regulation show promise in helping young people resist algorithmic content manipulation, and take back control of their social media usage.

Olga Kornienko. Photo provided.

Toth and her mentor Olga Kornienko, an associate professor of applied developmental psychology, are collaborating with a public school district in Arizona to understand sources the role of social relationships as sources of risk and resilience in the lives of contemporary youth.

Working out of George �鶹��Ƶ’s Peer Networks and Development Lab, Toth and Kornienko are collecting data from ninth-grade students through a series of questions about their social media use, culture, and psychological well-being.

They are collaborating with scholars from University of California, Davis, and Arizona State University, where Kornienko earned her PhD in 2010.

“Our study is not specific to any one social media platform. We were able to capture the broader digital experience that adolescents have online that reflects their everyday life. We hope it will remain relevant to Gen Alpha and beyond because even as individual platforms go in and out of use or new ones pop up, they're still going to have those core aspects of promoting constant engagement and peer feedback,” said Toth.

Toth said that while she didn’t have much experience with academic publishing before coming to graduate school at George �鶹��Ƶ, she hit the ground running. “We started [this research project] in my very first semester, so it was a very important part of my professional development working with Dr. Kornienko,” Toth said. “[She taught me about] so many different aspects of peer interaction and networks, social media, and how they're all interconnected.”

“It’s been such a pleasure seeing Caro grow as a researcher and academic,” said Kornienko. “She is addressing a very complex topic and contributing to more positive adolescent experiences.”

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College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Hybrid Learning and Prevention Program Reduces Teen Substance Use

Mary Cunningham — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 21:09:45 +0000

Hybrid Learning and Prevention Program Reduces Teen Substance Use Mary Cunningham Thu, 08/18/2022 - 17:09

In This Story

Kenneth W. Griffin, PhD, MPH

Hybrid school-based programs for preventing substance abuse offer considerable public health potential.

Professor of Global and Community Health Kenneth Griffin

Approximately 90% of adults who meet the criteria for drug addiction started using before they were 18. School-based drug abuse prevention programs can be highly effective in reducing the onset and escalation of substance use, but new strategies are needed to overcome barriers to implementing effective prevention programs, such as reduced classroom time.

A new study from Professor of Global and Community Health Kenneth Griffin shows that a hybrid school-based substance abuse prevention program was effective at reducing multiple forms of substance use among middle school students. Students who received the hybrid prevention program (combining online e-learning modules and in-class sessions) showed significantly less cigarette smoking, e-cigarette and vaping use, excess alcohol use, marijuana use, and prescription drug misuse compared to students who received standard health education.

Major barriers to successful in-class only programs include the amount of class time programs require and the challenge of implementing programs with high levels of fidelity to their original design. The hybrid program effectively addressed both of these barriers.

“Hybrid digital approaches to prevent substance use in adolescents, such as those tested in this study, offer the potential for delivering program content in a time-efficient and standardized manner,” said Griffin. “Additionally, the hybrid approach reserves class time for in-person interactive activities such as small-group discussion and skills practice, which have been shown to be core components of effective prevention programming.”

Students in the hybrid intervention group also reported increased overall health knowledge, skills knowledge, and improvements in life skills including decision-making, coping with anxiety and anger, effective communication, social skills, assertiveness, and conflict resolution.

Twenty-three middle schools across the United States participated in the study. The content for the e-learning program was adapted from the evidence-based Life Skills Training (LST) classroom program. The self-paced e-learning portion efficiently presents information and promotes knowledge acquisition, while in-person class time provided opportunities for the application and practice of the knowledge and skills taught through the online e-learning program.

“Effectiveness of a hybrid digital substance abuse prevention approach combining e-learning and in-person class sessions” was published in Frontiers in Digital Health in August 2022.

This study was funded by the National Institutes on Drug Abuse, and the program was developed by National Health Promotion Associates, where Griffin is currently a consultant. The consulting arrangement has been disclosed and approved.

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