Chapter 30: Quiz — Mental Health and Social Media: Navigating the Evidence

Instructions: Choose the best answer for each question. Answer key appears at the end.

Question 1 According to the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the percentage of high school students reporting persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness rose from approximately 26 percent in 2009 to what percentage in 2021?

A) 32 percent B) 38 percent C) 44 percent D) 51 percent

Question 2 Jean Twenge identifies the inflection point for adolescent mental health deterioration as approximately which year?

A) 2008 B) 2010 C) 2012 D) 2015

Question 3 Which of the following best describes the "reverse causation" problem in social media and mental health research?

A) Social media companies deliberately cause mental health problems to increase usage B) People with mental health problems may use more social media, making causation run from depression to social media use rather than the reverse C) Social media algorithms reverse the positive effects of therapy D) Research conducted in reverse chronological order produces different results

Question 4 Amy Orben and Andrew Przybylski's 2019 paper in Nature Human Behaviour found that the association between digital technology use and adolescent well-being was:

A) Large and clearly causal, justifying immediate policy intervention B) Statistically significant but small in effect size, comparable to wearing glasses or eating potatoes C) Non-existent, with no detectable relationship after controlling for confounders D) Positive, suggesting that technology use improved well-being overall

Question 5 What is Orben's "Goldilocks Hypothesis"?

A) Social media is harmful for girls but not boys, like Goldilocks only being right for herself B) Social media effects are too large to be explained by a single mechanism C) Both too little and too much social media use are associated with worse outcomes compared to moderate use D) The research evidence is neither too strong nor too weak to support policy intervention

Question 6 Patti Valkenburg's longitudinal research found that social media use was associated with well-being:

A) Negatively for all adolescents, regardless of individual characteristics B) Positively for all adolescents, particularly for those with strong peer networks C) Positively for some adolescents, negatively for others, and not significantly for the majority D) Not at all, with no significant relationship between social media use and well-being

Question 7 Which of the following represents the strongest evidence pathway linking social media to adolescent mental health harm?

A) The general correlation between screen time and depression scores B) The relationship between Instagram use and body image, including internal corporate research C) The relationship between social media use and academic performance decline D) The relationship between TikTok use and attention span reduction

Question 8 According to Facebook's internal research (leaked in 2021), what percentage of teen girls reported that Instagram made them feel worse when they already felt bad about their body?

A) 17 percent B) 32 percent C) 45 percent D) 58 percent

Question 9 Which of the following is described as the most clearly established causal pathway from social media use to mental health harm?

A) Social comparison leading to reduced self-esteem B) Cyberbullying leading to depression and suicidality C) Sleep disruption from device use near bedtime D) Displacement of offline social interaction

Question 10 Which group of adolescents is identified in the chapter as having the clearest positive mental health relationship with social media?

A) High-achieving students who use social media for academic networking B) Athletes who use social media to find training motivation C) LGBTQ+ youth in unsupportive environments who find community online D) Students with large offline friend networks who use social media to coordinate

Question 11 What methodological problem is associated with studies that measure "screen time" as a single variable?

A) Screen time cannot be accurately self-reported B) It bundles together very different types of digital activity that likely have different effects C) Screen time measures vary too much between countries to allow comparison D) Self-reports of screen time are always lower than actual usage

Question 12 Which research design is most capable of establishing causal relationships between social media use and mental health outcomes?

A) Large cross-sectional correlational studies with national samples B) True experiments where participants are randomly assigned to different levels of social media use C) Longitudinal surveys that follow the same participants over many years D) Meta-analyses that combine results from many different studies

Question 13 What is "publication bias" and why is it relevant to social media and mental health research?

A) Social media companies fund most research, biasing results toward positive findings B) Studies showing statistically significant negative effects are more likely to be published than null or positive results, potentially overstating harm C) Researchers who study social media are biased toward finding negative results because they distrust technology D) Academic journals are biased against publishing research on digital health topics

Question 14 The gender gap in adolescent mental health deterioration (girls being more affected than boys) is considered relevant to the social media debate because:

A) It proves that social media causes mental health problems specifically in girls B) Girls use social media more than boys, making them more exposed to any potential harms C) It is consistent with the social comparison mechanism, as Instagram's appearance-focused content would be expected to affect girls more D) The gender gap only appears in countries with high rates of social media use

Question 15 Which of the following best characterizes the substantive disagreement between Jonathan Haidt and Amy Orben about social media and mental health?

A) Haidt believes social media has no effect on mental health; Orben believes it is catastrophically harmful B) Both agree on the facts but disagree about whether social media causes mental health problems; the dispute is purely political C) Haidt argues the evidence justifies strong causal claims and policy action; Orben argues the evidence is too uncertain and effect sizes too small to support those conclusions D) Haidt focuses on positive effects of social media; Orben focuses on negative effects

Question 16 The current AAP guidance on screen time for adolescents (revised 2022) primarily emphasizes:

A) A strict two-hour daily limit for all social media use B) Complete abstinence from social media for children under 13 C) The quality and type of media use rather than strict time limits, while protecting sleep and physical activity D) Parental monitoring of all digital communications for children under 18

Question 17 The cross-national pattern of adolescent mental health deterioration (occurring across multiple countries with similar timing) is relevant because it:

A) Proves that social media is the cause, since all affected countries adopted social media at similar times B) Rules out country-specific explanations (like particular economic events) as the primary cause C) Suggests that genetic factors may be responsible for the global trend D) Demonstrates that the mental health crisis is uniform across all countries

Question 18 In the Valkenburg et al. (2021) study, which type of social media use was more negatively associated with well-being?

A) Active use (posting, commenting, messaging) B) Passive use (scrolling and browsing without interacting) C) Creative use (video creation, content production) D) Communicative use (direct messaging close friends)

Question 19 Which of the following most accurately describes the state of experimental evidence on social media and mental health?

A) Multiple large, long-term randomized controlled trials have established causal harm to adolescents B) Experimental studies generally find no effect of social media on mental health under controlled conditions C) A number of short-term experiments show negative effects on some well-being measures, but they mostly involve adults rather than adolescents D) Experimental studies are impossible to conduct ethically, so no experimental evidence exists

Question 20 When a news headline reads "New study shows social media causes teen depression," which of the following questions would be most important to ask?

A) What country was the study conducted in? B) Was the study correlational or experimental, and if correlational, what was the effect size? C) What year was the study published? D) How many social media platforms were included in the study?

Question 21 What did Velocity Media decide to implement in response to reviewing the mental health and social media research?

A) A complete ban on under-18 users from the platform B) Content diversity algorithms for appearance-related content and sleep-protective defaults for users under 18 C) A maximum of one hour of social media use per day for all users D) Removal of all appearance-related content from the platform

Question 22 Which of the following best represents the chapter's overall conclusion about social media and adolescent mental health?

A) Social media is clearly and definitively harmful to adolescent mental health and should be restricted for under-18s B) Social media has no meaningful effect on adolescent mental health, and concerns are media exaggeration C) Social media has genuine risks and genuine benefits distributed unevenly across individuals and use types, with current evidence insufficient to justify simple universal conclusions D) Social media is beneficial for most adolescents but harmful for a small, easily identifiable minority

Answer Key

  1. C — 44 percent
  2. C — 2012
  3. B — People with mental health problems may use more social media, making causation run from depression to use rather than the reverse
  4. B — Statistically significant but small in effect size, comparable to wearing glasses or eating potatoes
  5. C — Both too little and too much social media use are associated with worse outcomes compared to moderate use
  6. C — Positively for some, negatively for others, and not significantly for the majority
  7. B — The relationship between Instagram use and body image, including internal corporate research
  8. B — 32 percent
  9. C — Sleep disruption from device use near bedtime
  10. C — LGBTQ+ youth in unsupportive environments who find community online
  11. B — It bundles together very different types of digital activity that likely have different effects
  12. B — True experiments where participants are randomly assigned to different levels of social media use
  13. B — Studies showing statistically significant negative effects are more likely to be published than null or positive results
  14. C — It is consistent with the social comparison mechanism, as Instagram's appearance-focused content would be expected to affect girls more
  15. C — Haidt argues the evidence justifies strong causal claims and policy action; Orben argues the evidence is too uncertain
  16. C — The quality and type of media use rather than strict time limits, while protecting sleep and physical activity
  17. B — Rules out country-specific explanations as the primary cause
  18. B — Passive use (scrolling and browsing without interacting)
  19. C — A number of short-term experiments show negative effects on some well-being measures, but mostly involve adults rather than adolescents
  20. B — Was the study correlational or experimental, and if correlational, what was the effect size?
  21. B — Content diversity algorithms for appearance-related content and sleep-protective defaults for users under 18
  22. C — Social media has genuine risks and genuine benefits distributed unevenly across individuals and use types