(PS1-99) Victimization on Social Media Predicts Increased Depressive Symptoms Two Weeks Later

Social media has become a highly salient aspect of everyday life, with over 93% of young adults utilizing it. Given the proliferation of social media use, many researchers have questioned whether it could correlate with increased internalizing symptoms over the past decade. Much research on the potential effects of social media use has focused on the frequency of use rather than contextual variables such as the user's experience. The present longitudinal study sought to determine whether experiences of online victimization are predictive of increased depressive symptoms two weeks later. Undergraduates (N = 189) completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-Revised and the Online Victimization Scale at baseline and at a two-week (N = 148) follow-up. The Online Victimization Scale is a measure designed to assess instances of online victimization across various domains, including general (i.e., bullied, harassed, embarrassed) and racial. Racial victimization is measured at both the individual level (i.e., personally experiencing racial victimization) and the vicarious level (i.e., experiencing others making fun of a racial group online). Minority participants were oversampled to ensure adequate power for individual racism and vicarious racism analyses. Additionally, these analyses were only performed using data from participants who identified as non-white. All longitudinal analyses controlled for biological sex, age, and baseline levels of depression. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that experiences of individual racism (p = .03; β = .18; 95% CI [.08, 1.59]), experiences of vicarious racism (p = .03; β = .17; 95% CI [.05, 1.01]), and general experiences of victimization (p < .05; β = .13; 95% CI [.09, .71]) were predictive of increased depressive symptoms two-weeks later. These results support the utility of continued research into the impact of users' experiences on social media and suggest potential targets for clinical intervention. Future studies would benefit from discerning precisely who is most at risk for increased depressive symptoms, as individual differences across users may moderate the impact of social media experiences on mental health. Moreover, more work on potential protective factors such as receiving social support, engaging with similar others, and increased opportunities for communication should also be considered.