From motivation to experience: Blurred boundaries in the measurement of adolescent social media engagement

Despite extensive research on the role of social media use in adolescent mental health, fundamental questions remain about what current self-report measures capture. We systematically reviewed 96 adolescent self-report measures of social media use, comprising 1,526 unique items. Through content analysis, we examined what measures assess and the behavioural and psychological processes through which they are operationalised. We found substantial conceptual overlap between measures, particularly those assessing problematic use and addiction, alongside discrepancies between item content and young people’s reported experiences. Importantly, current measures were found to frequently combine motivation, behaviour, experience, and mindset, despite these psychological behaviours and processes being theoretically distinguished. This raises questions about whether existing measures meaningfully test the hypothesises mechanisms and theoretical frameworks underpinning social media and mental health research. Our findings highlight the need to move beyond content-focused approaches to measurement, towards greater attention to how social media is operationalised and recognition of its potentially dynamic and interdependent nature.