Quality Over Quantity: A Review of Social Media Use, Adolescent Peer Relationship and Prosocial Behavior

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-509-6_75How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Adolescent Development; Social Media Use; Peer Relationships; Prosocial Behavior

Abstract

The existing literature points to the fact that social media use (SMU) has become a central feature of adolescent life, a period characterized by rapid neural, cognitive, and social maturation. Online platforms increasingly mediate communication, self-comparison, and affirmation seeking by adolescents, thereby exerting an active influence on two key domains of social development: peer relationships and prosocial behavior. Based on thematic relevance, 11 studies were selected that investigated the relationship between SMU and either friendship quality or prosocial behavior in adolescents aged 10 to 22. Using surveys, experience sampling, longitudinal designs, experiments, and fMRI, the studies found that results varied on the quality as opposed to duration of online interaction. SMU that is interactive and rich in feedback supported intimacy and real-life helping, while passive, metric-focused, or punitively framed content showed little or negative impact. These findings were moderated by platform affordances and motivational orientation, suggesting that interventions ought to promote qualitative SMU as opposed to imposing blanket screen-time limits.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Xiang Meng
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/15
TI  - Quality Over Quantity: A Review of Social Media Use, Adolescent Peer Relationship and Prosocial Behavior
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 International Conference on Mental Growth and Human Resilience (MGHR 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 680
EP  - 690
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-509-6_75
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-509-6_75
ID  - Meng2025
ER  -