Ine Beyens

• PhD
• Assistant Professor with tenure at University of Amsterdam

Despite the far-reaching impact of stress on overall well-being, current research offers little information on whether smartphone use is stress-inducing or stress-buffering for adolescents. Building on the transactional theory of stress, this study is the first to address the effect of smartphone use on perceived stress in adolescents (17,152 obser...

Delve into the ideal resource for theory and research on parental monitoring and adolescents' disclosure and concealment from parents. This handbook presents ground-breaking research exploring how adolescents respond to parents' attempts to control and manage their activities and feelings. The chapters highlight how adolescents' responses are as im...

To better understand the effects of social media use on adolescents' psychosocial functioning, this study examined the temporal stability of social media effects across two separate 3‐week experience sampling methodology (ESM) studies conducted 6 months apart in 2019 and 2020. Participants were 297 adolescents ( M age = 14.1 years, SD = 0.7, 58.9%...

Due to the ubiquitous nature of digital media in youths’ lives, concerns have been raised that digital media might negatively affect attention. For children and adolescents, these concerns revolve around two questions. First, what are the momentary, short-term effects of digital media on attention and processing (e.g., while studying or doing homew...

Digital technology enables parents and adolescents to communicate anywhere and anytime. Knowledge of parent–adolescent online communication, however, is mainly based on cross‐sectional studies. In this preregistered 100‐day diary study, 479 adolescents ( M age = 15.98, 54.9% girls; 96.9% Dutch) reported daily if they had communicated with their par...

The smartphone occupies a substantial part of adolescents’ daily life, from the moment they wake up to, for some, well beyond their bedtime. The current study compared the impact of adolescents’ daytime, pre-bedtime, and post-bedtime smartphone use on their sleep quality. In addition, it explored the differential effects of lean-back and lean-forwa...

The rising prevalence of mental health problems among adolescents has prompted increased scrutiny of social media as a contributing factor. Previous research has produced mixed results, likely due to the varying impact of social media on different dimensions of mental health. To advance understanding in this area, this study examined how social med...

Social media use is often highlighted as an important cause of the recent rise in depression among adolescents. However, this perspective overlooks a crucial reverse causality, namely that levels of depression might also shape adolescents’ social media use. In a diary study among 479 adolescents (16.9% clinically depressed), we assessed their level...

This study investigated the effects of active private, passive private, and passive public social media use on adolescents’ affective well-being. Intensive longitudinal data (34,930 assessments in total) were collected through a preregistered three-week experience sampling method study among 387 adolescents. N = 1 time series were investigated, usi...

We recently introduced a new, unified approach to investigate the effects of social media use on well-being. Using experience sampling methods among sizeable samples of respondents, our unified approach combines the strengths of nomothetic methods of analysis (e.g., mean comparisons, regression models), which are suited to understand group averages...

To better understand among whom, when, and why social media use affects psychosocial functioning, this study examined the temporal stability of social media effects across two separate three-week experience sampling methodology (ESM) studies with a six-month gap between them. Participants were 297 adolescents (Mage = 14.08 years, SD = .70, 59% girl...

We investigated the expressions of happiness and sadness in adolescents’ direct messages (DMs) on Instagram. Using neural topic modeling ( BERTopic), we analyzed 211,778 DMs belonging to 96 adolescents, who donated data from 101 Instagram accounts. Results showed that (1) expressions of happiness were more than four times more prevalent than expres...

Adolescents spend a substantial portion of their time using social media. Yet, there is a lack of understanding regarding how often parents and adolescents communicate about this social media use. To address this gap, we developed the Parent-Adolescent Communication about Adolescents’ Social Media Use Scale (PACAS). In a first data wave, among 388...

Digital technology enables parents and adolescents to communicate anywhere and anytime. Knowledge of parent-adolescent online communication, however, is mainly based on cross-sectional studies. In this preregistered 100-day diary study, 479 adolescents (Mage = 15.98, 54.9% girls; 96.9% Dutch) reported daily if they had communicated with their paren...

This study investigated the short-term dynamic within-person relationship between adolescents’ self-presentation on social media and their self-esteem. It also examined whether this association depended on adolescents’ satisfaction with peer feedback and their preoccupation with such feedback. We conducted a 100-day daily diary study among 371 adol...

The smartphone occupies a substantial part of adolescents’ daily life, from the moment they wake up to well beyond their bedtime. The current study compared the impact of adolescents' daytime, pre-bedtime, and post-bedtime smartphone use on their sleep quality. We collected data from 155 participants across 21 days using smartphone tracking (758,55...

The smartphone has become an integral part of adolescents’ daily life. Despite the countless affordances of smartphones, concerns have been raised about their enormous potential to cause failures in self-regulation, such as distraction and task delay. The current study investigated whether two smartphone usage patterns, fragmented and sticky smartp...

The smartphone has become an integral part of adolescents’ daily life. Despite the countless affordances of smartphones, concerns have been raised about their enormous potential to cause failures in self-regulation, such as distraction and task delay. The current study investigated whether two smartphone usage patterns, fragmented and sticky smartp...

Adolescents encounter various types of alcohol-related posts on social media, but little research has distinguished between them. Yet, building on social modeling processes, alcohol posts showing friends (i.e. friend-focused) vs. solely focusing on alcohol (i.e. alcohol-focused) might differently affect adolescents’ drinking behavior. In addition,...

There is a popular concern that adolescents’ social media use, especially via smartphones, leads to the delay of intended, potentially more important tasks. Automatic social media use and frequent phone checking may especially contribute to task delay. Prior research has investigated this hypothesis through between-person associations. We advance t...

We recently introduced a new, unified approach to investigate the effects of social media use on well-being. Using experience sampling methods among sizeable samples of respondents, our unified approach combines the strengths of nomothetic methods of analysis (e.g., mean comparisons, regression models), which are suited to understand group averages...

We investigated the expressions of happiness and sadness in adolescents’ direct messages (DMs) on Instagram. Using neural topic modelling (BERTopic), we analyzed 211,778 DMs belonging to 96 adolescents, who donated data from 110 Instagram accounts. Results showed that (1) expressions of happiness were more than four times more prevalent than expres...

Social media are often believed to distract adolescents’ attention. While existing research has shown that some adolescents experience more social media-related distraction than others, the explanations for these differences remain largely unknown. Based on Self-Determination Theory, this preregistered study investigated two social connectivity fac...

Studies assessing the effects of social media use are largely based on measures of time spent on social media. In recent years, scholars increasingly ask for more insights in social media activities and content people engage with. Data Download Packages (DDPs), the archives of social media platforms that each European user has the right to download...

There is popular concern that adolescents’ social media use, especially via smartphones, leads to irrational delay of intended tasks (i.e., procrastination). Automatic social media use and frequent phone checking may especially contribute to procrastination. Prior research has investigated this through between-person associations. We advance the li...

Research agrees that self-reported measures of time spent with social media (TSM) show poor convergent validity, because they correlate modestly with equivalent objective digital trace measures. This experience sampling study among 159 adolescents (12,617 self-reports) extends this work by examining the comparative predictive validity of self-repor...

A widespread concern in society is that adolescents experience an increased inability to concentrate and sustain attention because they are continuously distracted by social media. The current experience sampling method (ESM) study examined whether adolescents who use more social media than their peers experience more distraction (between-person as...

One of the key challenges faced by many parents is to manage the pervasiveness of social media in adolescents’ lives and its effects on adolescents’ well-being (e.g., life satisfaction) and ill-being (e.g., depressive symptoms). Parents may manage adolescents’ social media use and social media-induced well-being and ill-being through media-specific...

A recurring claim in the literature is that active social media use (ASMU) leads to increases in well-being, whereas passive social media use (PSMU) leads to decreases in well-being. The aim of this review was to investigate the validity of this claim by comparing the operationalizations and results of studies into the association of ASMU and PSMU...

Studies into the association of social media use with mental health are largely based on measures of time spent on social media. The small and inconsistent results in these studies may be due to a lack of explanatory power of time-based measures. Data Download Packages (DDPs), the archives of social media platforms that each user is allowed to down...

A recurring claim in the literature is that active social media use (ASMU) leads to increases in well-being, whereas passive social media use (PSMU) leads to decreases in well-being. The aim of this review was to investigate the validity of this claim by comparing the operationalizations and results of studies into the association of ASMU and PSMU...

Social media are often believed to challenge adolescents’ ability to focus and sustain attention. While existing research has shown that some adolescents experience more social media-related distraction than others, the explanations for these differences remain largely unknown. The current study investigated two social connectivity factors (fear of...

Research agrees that self-reported measures of time spent with social media (TSM) show poor convergent validity, because they correlate modestly with equivalent objective digital trace measures. This experience sampling study among 159 adolescents (12,617 self-reports) extends this work by examining the comparative predictive validity of self-repor...

A recurring hypothesis in the literature is that “passive” social media use (browsing) leads to negative effects on well-being. This preregistered study investigated a rival hypothesis, which states that the effects of browsing on well-being depend on person-specific susceptibilities to envy, inspiration, and enjoyment. We conducted a three-week ex...

Who benefits most from using social media is an important societal question that is centered around two opposing hypotheses: the rich-get-richer versus the poor-get-richer hypothesis. This study investigated the assumption that both hypotheses may be true, but only for some socially rich and some socially poor adolescents and across different time...

Who benefits most from using social media is an important societal question that is centered around two opposing hypotheses: the rich-get-richer versus the poor-get-richer hypothesis. This study investigated the assumption that both hypotheses may be true, but only for some socially rich and some socially poor adolescents and across different time...

The aim of this preregistered study was to compare and explain the effects of (a) time spent on social media (SM) and (b) the valence (positivity or negativity) of SM experiences on adolescents’ self-esteem. We conducted a 3-week experience sampling (ESM) study among 300 adolescents (13–16 years; 126 assessments per adolescent; 21,970 assessments i...

Literature reviews on how social media use affects adolescent mental health have accumulated at an unprecedented rate of late. Yet, a higher-level integration of the evidence is still lacking. We fill this gap with an up-to-date umbrella review, a review of reviews published between 2019 and mid 2021. Our search yielded 25 reviews: seven meta-analy...

Literature reviews on how social media use affects adolescent mental health have accumulated at an unprecedented rate of late. Yet, a higher-level integration of the evidence is still lacking. We fill this gap with an up-to-date umbrella review, a review of reviews published between 2019 and mid 2021. Our search yielded 25 reviews: seven meta-analy...

A growing number of studies have tried to assess the effects of social media on adolescents, who are among the most avid social media users. To establish the effects of social media use, we need accurate and valid instruments to measure adolescents’ time spent with these media. The aim of this preregistered study was to examine the accuracy and con...

A growing number of studies have tried to assess the effects of social media on adolescents, who are among the most avid social media users. To establish the effects of social media use, we need accurate and valid instruments to measure adolescents’ time spent with these media. The aim of this preregistered study was to examine the accuracy and con...

The aim of this preregistered study was to compare and explain the effects of (a) time spent on social media (SM), and (b) the valence (positivity or negativity) of SM experiences on adolescents’ self-esteem. We conducted a three-week experience sampling study among 300 adolescents (13-16 years; 126 assessments per adolescent; 21,970 assessments in...

The formation and maintenance of friendship closeness is an important developmental task in adolescence. To obtain insight in real-time processes that may underly the development of friendship closeness in middle adolescence, this preregistered experience sampling study [ESM] investigated the effects of social media use on friendship closeness. The...

Eighteen earlier studies have investigated the associations between social media use (SMU) and adolescents’ self-esteem, finding weak effects and inconsistent results. A viable hypothesis for these mixed findings is that the effect of SMU differs from adolescent to adolescent. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a preregistered three-week experie...

A recurring hypothesis in the literature is that “passive” social media use (browsing) leads to negative effects on well-being. This preregistered study investigated a rival hypothesis, which states that the effects of browsing on well-being depend on person-specific susceptibilities to envy, inspiration, and enjoyment. We conducted a three-week ex...

One of the key challenges in adolescence is to develop the ability for self-control. The current experience sampling method (ESM) study examined whether adolescents who spend more time on social media than their peers are more inclined to fail at this ability (between-person association), whether social media use and self-control failure co-fluctua...

This study investigated the effects of active private, passive private, and passive public social media use on adolescents’ well-being. Intensive longitudinal data (34,930 assessments in total) were collected through a preregistered three-week experience sampling study among 387 adolescents. Person-specific, N=1 time series were investigated, using...

This longitudinal study investigated transactional relationships between violent media use and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)–related behaviors among young children (ages 4-8 years). To investigate study hypotheses, we employed a random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) using structural equation modeling with panel data...

This study investigates the interplay between online and face-to-face (FtF) feedback on stress during an important life event. We present data on a two-month, six-wave longitudinal study of 468 Chilean adolescents across three important stages of a competitive national university selection test (Prueba de Selección Universitaria [PSU]) to assess lo...

The question whether social media use benefits or undermines adolescents’ well-being is an important societal concern. Previous empirical studies have mostly established across-the-board effects among (sub)populations of adolescents. As a result, it is still an open question whether the effects are unique for each individual adolescent. We sampled...

Which social media are embraced by Dutch youth, how are these platforms used and what feelings does social media use brings about? This is report is a brief version of the original Dutch report, "Posten, scrollen, appen en snappen," published in December 2019. It presents social media use data based on a national representative survey among 1,000...

Vrijwel niets is veranderlijker dan de online wereld, vooral de online wereld van jongeren. Op het gebied van social media is alles snel nieuw en snel oud. Platforms die een aantal jaren geleden nog razend populair waren, zijn anno 2019 op hun retour (gebruiken jongeren Facebook nog?) of kunnen we zelfs als antiek beschouwen (wie herinnert zich nog...

Whether studies should rely on parent or child reports of parental mediation remains a much-debated question. We investigated the agreement between parent and adolescent reports of the frequency and style (autonomy-supportive, controlling, inconsistent) of restrictive and active mediation, and their relative validity. Results revealed perceptual di...

Despite a large body of literature on the opportunities of parental mediation to enhance positive and offset negative media effects, a long-term view as to the development of such mediation across childhood is lacking. The current study aimed to address this gap by presenting a developmental approach to parental mediation. Using an accelerated long...

The diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among children and adolescents has increased considerably over the past decades. Scholars and health professionals alike have expressed concern about the role of screen media in the rise in ADHD diagnosis. However, the extent to which screen media use and ADHD are linked remains a poi...

The current study examined the role of parental media mediation styles in the relationships between (1) prosocial media content and the performance of prosocial behavior and (2) antisocial media content and the performance of antisocial behavior. The results of a cross-sectional survey (N = 475; Mage = 14.6) indicated that autonomy-supportive restr...

This study examined the association between electronic media use and sleep among preschoolers, using a national sample of 402 mothers of 3- to 5-year-olds. Participants completed an online survey assessing preschoolers’ electronic media use, bedtime and wake time, sleep time, napping behaviors, and sleep consolidation. Results showed that heavier t...

We explored the relations among young children's mobile media use, sleep, and a form of self‐regulation, temperamental effortful control (EC), among a national sample of 402 mothers who completed an online survey. We found that the relation between mobile media use and EC was moderated by children's sleep time. Tablet use was negatively related to...

Sexualizing media content is prevalent in various media types. Sexualizing media messages and portrayals emphasize unattainable body and appearance ideals as the primary components of sexual desirability. The internalization of these ideals is positively related to self-objectification and sexual body consciousness. In turn, self-objectification an...

Prior research has suggested that mothers’ life logistics may increase opportunities for children to watch television. However, associations between structural circumstances of mothers’ lives and levels of children’s television use have not been empirically investigated. The contribution of this study is that it investigates maternal structural lif...

This survey study among adolescents (N = 402) investigates an integrative model that examines (1) the mediating role of adolescents’ fear of missing out (FoMO) in the relationships of adolescents’ need to belong and need for popularity with adolescents’ Facebook use and (2) the relationships of adolescents’ FoMO with adolescents’ perceived stress r...

This study examined the relations of children’s tablet use and parents’ mediation of children’s tablet use with parent–child conflict about such use. A sample of 364 parents of children aged 2–10 years was used to investigate the relations. The results showed that children who spent more time using the tablet had more conflicts with their parents....

This study investigated the relation between preschoolers’ mobile electronic device (MED) use and sleep disturbances. A national sample of 402 predominantly college-educated and Caucasian mothers of 3–5-year-olds completed a survey assessing their preschoolers’ MED use, bedtime resistance, sleep duration, and daytime sleepiness. Heavier evening and...

Conclusion: This is the first study to demonstrate that online communication predicts the initiation of offline sexual and romantic activity as early as adolescence. Practitioners and parents need to consider the role of online communication in adolescents' developing sexuality. What is Known: • Adolescents increasingly communicate online with pee...

This two-wave panel study among mothers (N = 508) of children between ages six months and six years investigated a) the possibility of a reciprocal relationship between mothers’ attitudes toward television and children’s television viewing, and b) the conditional probability of this reciprocal relationship. Two-wave multigroup cross-lagged analyses...

While it is well understood that demographic, cultural, and personality characteristics predict adolescents’ television viewing, little is known about adolescents’ conformity to the television viewing behaviour of their peers. In particular, there is a lack of research that investigates the similarity in television programme preferences among adole...

Research has demonstrated that adolescents regularly use Internet pornography. This two-wave panel study aimed to test an integrative model in early adolescent boys (Mean age = 14.10; N = 325) that (a) explains their exposure to Internet pornography by looking at relationships with pubertal timing and sensation seeking, and (b) explores the potenti...

The current study examines how sexual television viewing and sensation seeking are related to girls’ and boys’ attitude toward uncommitted sexual exploration using data from a two-wave panel study with a six-month interval (N = 1,096). Hierarchical regression analyses showed a positive three-way interaction effect demonstrating that sensation seeki...

This study investigates predictors and consequences associated with the use of television as a babysitter for young children. Survey data of 844 children between the ages of six months and six years are analyzed using structural equation modeling. Parents’ attitude toward television emerged as best predictor of using television as a babysitter, whi...

This study investigates different types of cybersex behaviors among adolescents and examines whether the compensation and recreation hypothesis remain valid explanatory models in a context of more explicit types of cybersex. An online survey was completed by 594 adolescents (ages 15-18). Results show that engagement in both text-based and more visu...

The relationships between advertising exposure, disappointment and parent-child conflicts among Flemish children The relationships between advertising exposure, disappointment and parent-child conflicts among Flemish children The current study investigates whether children’s exposure to advertising is associated with disappointment when purchase re...