Parental Mediation Moderates the Association Between Social Media Exposure and Tobacco and Alcohol Use: Differences Between Elementary and Middle School Students

OBJECTIVE: With the popularity of social media among adolescents, the relation between social media exposure (especially exposure to undesirable content) and adolescent tobacco and alcohol use has attracted much attention. This study examined the association between social media exposure and tobacco and alcohol use, as well as the moderating role of parental active mediation and restrictive mediation; differences between elementary and middle school students were also investigated. METHOD: A total of 697 elementary school students ages 9-13 and 794 middle school students ages 12-18 were recruited to complete a questionnaire survey. RESULTS: Social media exposure was positively associated with tobacco and alcohol use among both elementary and middle school students. For elementary school students, both active mediation and restrictive mediation moderated the association between social media exposure and tobacco and alcohol use; for middle school students, neither of these moderating effects was significant. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that social media exposure is a risk factor for both elementary and middle school students. Both parental active and restrictive mediation are promising targets for intervention because they can mitigate the risk of social media exposure for elementary school students. However, further research should focus on factors that effectively buffer the negative effects of social media exposure on tobacco and alcohol use among middle school students.