Lynette Vernon

Tracking effects of problematic social networking on adolescent psychopathology: the mediating role of sleep disruptions

Concerns are growing about adolescents’ problematic social networking and possible links to depressed mood and externalizing behavior. Yet there remains little understanding of underlying processes that may account for these associations, including the mediating role of sleep disruption. This study tests this putative mediating process and examines change in problematic social networking investment and disrupted sleep, in relation to change in depressed mood and externalizing behavior. A sample of 874 students (41% male; 57.2% Caucasian; baseline M age = 14.4 years) from 27 high schools were surveyed. Participants’ problematic social networking, sleep disruption, and psychopathology (depressed mood, externalizing behaviors) were measured annually over 3 years. Longitudinal mediation was tested using latent trajectories of problematic social networking use, sleep disruption, and psychopathology. Both problematic social networking and sleep disruption underwent positive linear growth over time. Adolescents who increasingly invested in social networking reported increased depressed mood, with around 53% of this association explained by the indirect effect of increased sleep disruptions. Further, adolescents who increasingly invested in social networking also reported increased externalizing behavior; some of this relation was explained (13%) via increased sleep disruptions. However an alternative model in which increased externalizing was associated with increased social networking, mediated by sleep disruptions, indicated a reciprocal relation of similar magnitude. It is important for parents, teachers, and psychologists to minimize the negative effects of social networking on adolescents’ psychopathology. Interventions should potentially target promoting healthy sleep habits through reductions in social networking investment and rescheduling usage away from bedtime.

Creative arts outreach initiatives in schools: effects on university expectations and discussions about university with important socialisers

ABSTRACT For youth in disadvantaged schools, university expectations and participation are often limited by access to social and cultural capital that support expectations. This study investigated the utility of creative arts outreach initiatives (CAI) in supporting students’ university expectations and building cultural capital in homes, schools and neighbourhoods in the southwest corridor of Perth, Western Australia. Cultural capital was operationalised as discussions about university with parents, teachers and friends as important socialisers. The CAI provided task-based programs that connected students with industry professionals and university academics to access new social and cultural capital, develop skills that satisfied learning objectives and increase navigational capacity for higher education participation. Multi-group latent growth models were estimated for university expectations across 3 time points and university discussions with important socialisers at time 3 using a propensity-score matched sample comprising 176 students aged between 11 to 18 years from eight high schools (program group = 88, control group = 88, females = 64%). Results indicated stability in levels of university expectations for program participants and increased discussions about university with parents, teachers and friends. Findings support the inclusion of people-rich, co-curricular creative arts programs such as CAI in disadvantaged schools to build social and cultural capital that supports and potentially widens higher education participation in this region.