Reasons for Adolescents' Social Media Use: Relations With Mental Health and Self-Perception

Social Capital And Social Media Uses

From a social capital perspective, social media may represent an important way that individuals, particularly present-day adolescents, communicate with others and gather socially relevant information (Neves et al., 2018). Social media and other digital technologies appear to provide a convenient way of gaining social capital (Bajaj et al., 2021; Tilleczek & Rimer, 2019), which is an important byproduct of one’s interpersonal relationships (Coleman, 1988). Further, in terms of how individuals go about gaining social capital, social media applications can serve manifest (i.e., intended) and latent (i.e., unintended) social functions (see Merton, 1968 for an original description of these functions in broader social contexts). Direct actions such as posting or actively reading social media content may serve manifest functions, whereas personal intention or motivations for this engagement may align with the theoretical notion of latent functions.