A tool for help or harm? How associations between social networking use, social support, and mental health differ for sexual minority and heterosexual youth

Although use of social networking sites has been linked to both positive and negative changes in young people's mental health, it is likely that these contributions may vary based on users' motivations and social status. For sexual minority youth, for example, the sites could provide means for social support and connections with like-minded others. Accordingly, our study sought to examine the relations between sexual minority youth's social networking site use and their social support, sexual identity strength, and mental health. We conducted an online survey, sampling 146 sexual minority youth respondents (M = 21 years; SD = 2.87 years) and 477 heterosexual youth respondents (M = 20 years; SD = 2.76 years). Results indicated that although both sexual minority and heterosexual youth use social networking sites at equal rates, sexual minority youth indicated that they use sites more for identity development and social communication. Moreover, using sites for general identity expression or exploration predicted negative mental health outcomes, whereas using sites specifically for sexual identity development predicted positive mental health outcomes. These results provide greater insight into how social networking sites may impact the mental health of marginalized groups, and provide a framework for understanding differences in social networking site use by sexuality.