Apps and downs: Mental health and teenage girls’ interpretations of social media content

Social media contributes to teenage girls’ poor mental health, partly because they are subjected to online bullying. At the same time, teenage girls use social media for support on mental health issues. Most teenage girls follow an influencer and a common topic is how to feel good or what to do when you feel low.

However, research is missing on the relation between social media content and girls’ interpretations of it. In this study, we analyse influencers’ ideas of mental health and girls’ interpretations of these.

The aim is to examine the content relating to mental health in posts made by influencers and how teenage girls relate to this content in terms of their understanding of mental health.

The questions at issue are particularly relevant during social distancing because of Covid-19.Combining interdisciplinary digital health studies and childhood studies with empirical research, the perspectives of teenage girls are added to critical discussions on social media and mental health.

Influencers do not only discuss mental health but through the content they disseminate they also enact specific norms about such aspects as causes, strategies and the ideal for a good life.

As a result, they become conversational agents and personal coaches for mental health management.The study is inspired by ethnography for the Internet, which combines an analysis of online published material with offline interviews with social media users, a combination that will create knowledge that previous research on social media and mental health issues has not been able to do.

We cooperate with the School Health Service and two upper secondary schools where 17-year-old girls are recruited.

Data is collected and analysed by the means of individual interviews, thematic analysis and an analysis of wider discourses on mental health.

The study contributes with new knowledge about teenage girls’ use of social media and reported mental health problems.