PROFILING TEEN SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES USERS: DEVELOPMENTAL, IDENTITY, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES

Objective: in the last decades, social networking sites (SNSs) use among adolescents has dramatically increased, feeding the adolescents' needs. However, younger users might be more vulnerable to problematic social networking. Scholar research increasingly highlighted the need to explore the underlying mechanisms of problematic use of SNSs. Difficulties in emotion regulation, general distress, experiences of shame, and specific motivations for SNSs use might represent risk factors for problematic social networking. On the contrary, other variables adolescence-related and potentially involved in problematic SNSs use (emptiness, boredom, emotional autonomy, and self-concept clarity) need further exploration. Method: the present person-centered study aimed at profiling SNSs teen users (13-19 years) based on their (problematic) social networking, by comparing their SNSs-related behaviors and motivations, emotional dysregulation, distress symptoms, emptiness, boredom, shame, self-concept clarity, and emotional autonomy. Results: the study involved 774 Italian adolescents (57% females; mean age = 15.74 ± 1.62 years) and four different profiles characterized by unique patterns of (problematic) social networking were identified through the latent profile analysis (LPA): (1) non-problematic SNSs users, (2) at-risk SNSs users, (3) problematic SNSs users, and (4) defended SNSs users (ntp=218; AIC=39125.44; BIC=39988.37; SSABIC=39296.00; entropy=.97; LMP-LRT p <.05; BLRT p <.05). Conclusions: concerning the emerging profiles, problematic and non-problematic SNSs users displayed the highest and lower levels of risk factors related to social networking, respectively. The so-called "Defended" profile might include participant adolescents who defensively avoided thinking about the psychological and emotional experiences of SNSs use, showing very low levels in all the variables exploring SNSs-related behaviors and motivations, and psychological risk.