Adverse Childhood Experience and Problematic Social Media Use Among Young Adults

Abstract

Childhood problems like emotional, physical, or sexual abuse are examples of adverse childhood experiences (ACE). Teens that use social media too much run the risk of being distracted, having their sleep interrupted, and being subjected to bullying, gossip, unrealistic expectations of others’ life, and peer pressure. In this context, the aim of the present study was “to explore negative childhood experiences and problematic use of social media among young people”. To this end, three objectives and hypotheses were formulated to investigate the relationship, across gender and familial lines, between adverse childhood experiences and problematic social media usage in young adulthood. To investigate this, 100 participant responses were collected and analyzed using SPSS software. Descriptive statistics were calculated for data analysis, such as the correlation between two variables based on gender and household, mean and standard deviation, etc. After conducting the statistical analysis, a significant relationship was found between negative childhood experiences and problematic social media use among young adults. Based on gender, male participants received more attention than female participants. Thus, according to the third hypothesis, the contribution of the nuclear family is greater than that of the joint family.