Basic Need Satisfaction through Social Media Engagement: A Developmental Framework for Understanding Adolescent Social Media Use

There is no doubt that the current socio-technological context, including heavy engagement with social media (e.g., Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok), features as a critical component of modern daily life. This is especially true for adolescents, 97% of whom report using the internet daily and 35% of whom report using a social media platform “almost constantly” (Vogels et al., 2022, p. 1). Indeed, social media plays an important role in youths’ daily lives (Lenhart, 2015) and functions as an important context for adolescent development (Nesi et al., 2021; Spies Shapiro & Margolin, 2014; Subrahmanyam & Smahel, 2011). That said, there remains a lack of developmentally rooted theories for understanding youth social media engagement. Notably, current theories outlining factors influencing technology engagement more broadly (e.g., media habits and addiction theories, Griffiths, 2005; LaRose et al., 2010; Turel, 2015; uses and gratifications theory, Blumler & Katz, 1974, compensatory internet usage Theory, Kardefelt-Winther, 2014) often overlook the developmental processes driving such behaviors among youth. This is an especially salient knowledge gap given that the most widespread adoption of such technologies is within this demographic (Vogels et al., 2022). Further, considering the increasing emergence of concerns around the impacts of social media on adolescent’s well-being (e.g., technological addictions, Lozano-Blasco et al., 2022, mental health issues, Keles et al., 2019; fear of missing out [FoMO], Oberst et al., 2017), there is a dire need for a developmentally rooted theoretical understanding of youth’s motivations for technology engagement to better understand the underlying mechanisms driving such behaviors in adolescence. This is essential for the development of intervention and prevention efforts targeting youth experiencing negative outcomes because of their social media engagement, as well as the development of parenting guidelines and educational policies around technology use. As such, the objective of this paper is to explore how adolescents’ social media engagement can be developmentally conceptualized within notions of self-determination theory (SDT) (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2017), in which the use of these technologies is understood to function as a means of satisfying adolescents’ basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, while contributing to their attainment of key developmental tasks (i.e., identity formation, peer affiliation). Specifically, this paper will explore how adolescents may use social media as a means of satisfying their needs for relatedness through affording them with a sense of connection to others, for autonomy through providing them with a sense of agency, and for competence through providing them with opportunities for positive feedback. This exploration will emphasize how these features are particularly important within the context of adolescent development while considering how the satisfaction of these basic needs through social media engagement may contribute to both positive and negative outcomes in terms of youths’ overall well-being.

While media habits and addiction theories (e.g., Griffiths, 2005; LaRose et al., 2010; Turel, 2015) and uses and gratification theory (Blumler & Katz, 1974) have both greatly contributed to our understanding of the social and behavioral factors underpinning social media engagement, SDT (Ryan & Deci, 2017) further allows for the understanding of the developmental factors which may influence these experiences in adolescence along with their associated impacts on youth’s well-being. Indeed, in contrast to these other frameworks, SDT (Ryan & Deci, 2017) offers a developmental lens within which to conceptualize the nuances of adolescents’ experiences of social media engagement while considering the role of their basic need satisfaction and frustration. By contrast, media habits and addiction theories (e.g., Griffiths, 2005; LaRose et al., 2010; Turel, 2015), which outline how principles of operant conditioning can lead to increased heavy and problematic engagement with social media resulting in negative consequences, fall short of considering how these behaviors may be developmentally motivated and contribute to adolescents’ attainment of developmental milestones (e.g., peer affiliation and identity formation). Alternatively, while the uses and gratification theory (Blumler & Katz, 1974) provides a lens through which to understand social media engagement as a means of satisfying needs or gratifications (which may include adolescents’ developmental goals), it fails to account for the nuance with which social media engagement can both satisfy and frustrate psychological needs and thus simultaneously contribute to ill- and well-being. By contrast, SDT (Ryan & Deci, 2017) provides a framework within which to understand the developmental motivations driving social media engagement in adolescence, as well as how these behaviors can contribute to both need satisfaction and need frustration. Thus, this paper utilizes SDT (Ryan & Deci, 2017) to explore adolescents’ social media engagement to allow for a more nuanced understanding of these experiences and their impact on youth’s well-being.

Rooted in the understanding that each individual has an innate tendency toward growth and development, which represents an ongoing trajectory toward organismic integration (Ryan & Deci, 2017), SDT assumes that human beings naturally develop in the direction of increasing adaptation, integration, and coherence where possible. Though natural, this propensity toward integration is theorized to be dependent on social and environmental support for an individual’s satisfaction of basic psychological needs (i.e., the need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness; Ryan & Deci, 2017). The critical role of these psychological needs is outlined in a central mini-theory of the broader SDT framework known as the basic psychological need theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020). According to the basic psychological need theory, healthy psychological growth, and optimal development in general, is facilitated through the satisfaction, and contextual support, of basic psychological needs (Chen et al., 2015; E. Deci & Ryan, 2000; Riggenbach et al., 2019; Valkenburg et al., 2011). In other words, individuals are self-determined to the extent that they achieve this sense of integration and self-regulation, and achieving this goal depends on the extent to which their basic psychological needs are realized. As such, the satisfaction of basic psychological needs is conceptualized as an intrinsic force driving behavior across the life span (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and thus has important implications for understandings of youths’ motivations for social media engagement.

Within this framework, the term “psychological need” is defined as a psychological nutrient that is essential for individuals’ adjustment, integrity, and growth (Ryan et al., 1995). The satisfaction of basic psychological needs is understood to not only to be conducive to but essential for an individual’s well-being, while frustration is theorized to contribute to feelings of passivity and ill-being (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020). By this criterion, basic psychological need theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020) posits that the three basic psychological needs essential to human development and flourishing are the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Specifically, the need for autonomy describes the need for a sense of agency and control, while the need for competence refers to the need to feel effective and experience mastery when interacting with the environment. The need for relatedness describes the need to feel connected to others and maintain close and meaningful relationships (Deci & Ryan, 2000). According to Ryan and Deci (2017), these needs represent universal nutrients for psychological growth and well-being, as well as the attainment of various developmental outcomes, including pro-social tendencies (Tian et al., 2018; Wray-Lake et al., 2019), identity consolidation (Luyckx et al., 2009; Skhirtladze et al., 2019), and self-regulation (Roth et al., 2019).

Just as the satisfaction of basic psychological needs is associated with optimal growth and positive development, social environments that thwart satisfaction of these fundamental needs are associated with greater passivity, alienation, and ill-being (Ryan & Deci, 2017). Though need satisfaction does not necessarily imply the presence of need frustration, the presence of need frustration does denote the absence of need satisfaction (Vansteenkiste & Ryan, 2013). In this way, these two experiences (i.e., need satisfaction and frustration) stand in an asymmetrical relation to one another. For instance, as described by Vansteenkiste et al. (2019), while satisfaction of the need for autonomy is characterized by a sense of integrity as one’s actions, thoughts, and feelings are perceived to be self-endorsed and authentic, frustration of the need for autonomy is associated with the experience of a sense of pressure and conflict. Additionally, Vansteenkiste et al. (2019) describe relatedness satisfaction as the experience of warmth, bonding, and care that is experienced upon feeling connected and significant to others, while relatedness frustration comes with a sense of social alienation, exclusion, and loneliness. Lastly, competence satisfaction is described as feelings of effectiveness and mastery when one experiences opportunities for using and extending skills while capably engaging in activities, and competence frustration as the experience of a sense of ineffectiveness or even failure and helplessness (Vansteenkiste et al., 2019). Overall, several studies have linked need frustration with various indicators of ill-being, including stress (Campbell et al., 2017; Weinstein & Ryan, 2011), depressive symptoms (Cordeiro et al., 2016), and anxiety (Ng et al., 2012), emphasizing the potentially detrimental impacts of need thwarting environments.

Taken together, while the satisfaction of basic psychological needs is understood to contribute to human development, psychological growth, and well-being (Ryan & Deci, 2017), frustration of these needs can lead to negative outcomes (Vansteenkiste et al., 2019). This has important implications for conceptualizations of youths’ social media engagement in that, while basic need satisfaction may be an intrinsic force driving youths’ social media use, satisfaction or frustration of these basic needs within this context may have different implications in terms of adolescents’ overall well-being.

SDT posits that this core set of psychological needs is universally essential for human functioning, regardless of developmental epoch or cultural setting (Ryan & Deci, 2017). Indeed, Deci and Ryan (2000) clearly state that SDT applies, in principle, to individuals of all age groups, “the basic needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness must be satisfied across the life span for an individual to experience an ongoing sense of integrity and well-being” (p. 75). However, despite the importance of SDT across the life span, implications of this theory may be particularly important in the context of adolescence, as the fulfillment of these basic psychological needs plays an important role in supporting youth in the attainment of key developmental milestones such as identity formation and peer affiliation. In fact, although the foundational skills for self-determination develop in early childhood (Palmer, 2010; Wehmeyer & Shogren, 2017; Wehmeyer & Palmer, 2000), youth become self-determined in adolescence (i.e., they come to internalize, regulate, and self-endorse extrinsically motivated behaviors; Deci & Ryan, 2000) as they learn, refine, and practice knowledge, skills, beliefs, and actions that enable them to respond to contextual and environmental challenges that help satisfy their basic psychological needs (Wehmeyer et al., 2017).

Contrary to some conceptualizations of adolescent development, SDT views adolescence as a time of movement toward autonomy (as volitional action), not a time of separation from adults (La Guardia & Ryan, 2002). Rather, SDT posits that relatedness to parents and significant others (e.g., teachers, coaches, and peers) provides adolescents with a secure base from which they can pursue their innate tendency toward growth (Deci & Ryan, 2000). In this way, socially responsible autonomous functioning depends on continuing attachments and connections to others (Grolnick et al., 2002). However, in adolescence, youth begin to rely more on their peers as peer networks expand and interactions with peers become more intimate (Brown & Larson, 2009; Lerner, 2004; Steinberg, 2014). As a result, peers become primary sources of social support (Bokhorst et al., 2010) and thus provide an important social context for basic psychological need satisfaction.

Peers also provide important information in regard to identity formation, another pivotal developmental task of adolescence (Erikson, 1968; Zimmer-gembeck & Collins, 2006). According to Erikson (1968), a better-developed identity structure allows individuals to be more aware of their personal strengths and weaknesses, which facilitates their psychosocial well-being. In contrast, less developed identity structures leave individuals confused and vulnerable to ill-being. Indeed, several theoretical and empirical contributions have conceptualized the satisfaction of basic psychological needs as energizing processes for identity formation (Flum & Blustein, 2000; Guay et al., 2003), and reciprocally, identity formation is theorized to contribute to greater basic psychological need satisfaction (Ryan & Deci, 2003). As noted by La Guardia (2009), according to SDT, “identities are adopted in the service of … basic psychological needs” (p. 92). Specifically, by providing individuals with a sense of purpose and goal-directedness, identity formation can allow for greater satisfaction of basic psychological needs over time. In this way, Ryan and Deci (2003) proposed that basic psychological need satisfaction and identity formation likely reinforce one another, with one variable being a developmental asset to achieving the other and vice versa. Overall, basic psychological need satisfaction plays a pivotal role in adolescence by contributing to youth’s peer affiliation and identity formation, all of which likely have important implications for understanding youth’s motivations for social media engagement. As such, the following section will provide a comprehensive model of the intersections between social media engagement, basic psychological need satisfaction, and the attainment of the key developmental tasks of peer affiliation and identity formation in adolescence.

From the perspective of basic psychological need theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020), the need to experience autonomy, competence, and relatedness is considered important independent of demographics and contexts. However, different contexts have distinctive characteristics and may therefore differently serve aspects of basic psychological need satisfaction and subsequent overall well-being. Contemporarily, one particularly salient context for adolescent development is the socio-technological context, especially as it refers to social media engagement. In this case, social media engagement is defined as the broad use of social media, including social networking sites (SNSs) such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube (“social media” and “SNS” will be used interchangeably throughout this text). Indeed, youth born since the late 1990s have grown up in a context in which a deep reliance on technology is an integral part of daily life, making it almost impossible for them to imagine a life without being constantly connected (Kuss & Griffiths, 2017). Seeing as SDT suggests that individuals are driven to engage in activities that satisfy their basic psychological needs (Ryan & Deci, 1985), scholars have begun to examine basic need satisfaction in the context of technology engagement. For example, Peters et al. (2018) provide a model to understand how human-computer interaction design strategies can either support or undermine users’ basic psychological needs and thereby impact their motivation, engagement, and well-being. Moreover, substantive work has focused on need satisfaction in the context of video games, indicating that satisfaction of the needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence through gaming is associated with overall game enjoyment and well-being (see Ryan & Deci, 2017, for a review). Indeed, the “need density” hypothesis (Rigby & Ryan, 2011) suggests that for those with sparse or insufficient need satisfaction in daily life, exposure to positive and densely scheduled need satisfaction within games may be “irresistible” – thus placing them at increased risk for game overuse (Rigby & Ryan, 2011). While this hypothesis has yet to be directly examined in relation to social media, recent work has begun to look at basic psychological need satisfaction through social media engagement or other online communication technologies (Halfmann & Rieger, 2019; Reinecke et al., 2014), with one study looking at adolescents (Ang et al., 2015). Overall, most of this work has found that this type of technology engagement can contribute to the satisfaction of basic psychological needs, and that this is associated with individuals’ overall well-being (Ang et al., 2015; Reinecke et al., 2014). That said, preliminary evidence also indicates that social media engagement can contribute to thwarting psychological need satisfaction (Halfmann & Rieger, 2019).

Despite these emerging findings, there has yet to be a comprehensive examination of the association between basic psychological need satisfaction through social media engagement and key developmental tasks in adolescence (e.g., peer affiliation and identity formation). As such, the following section consists of a theoretical review of the interplay between the satisfaction of each basic psychological need (i.e., relatedness, autonomy, competence) through social media engagement and the key developmental tasks of peer affiliation and identity formation in adolescence, while taking into account their implications in terms of youths’ overall well-being.

The most widely examined basic psychological need in relation to social media engagement is the need for relatedness. This is likely due in part to the fact that nearly all theories of human motivation and development incorporate some sort of innate process by which people seek to establish and maintain satisfying connections with others (see an overview by Reis & Patrick, 1996), and in part to the fact that this same goal is a primary function of social media platforms (Anderson & Jiang, 2018). According to Baumeister and Leary (1995), the need to create and maintain interpersonal relationships is innate to all human beings, and this tendency to form strong, stable interpersonal bonds plays a fundamental and central role in human motivation. In support of this, the extensive psychological and medical literature has demonstrated that individuals who are satisfied in their connections with others tend to possess better physical and mental health and to live longer (see Ryff, 1995 for a summary). Within SDT, the need for relatedness is conceptualized as satisfaction derived from a sense of connectedness with others, characterized by a need for belonging, closeness, and intimacy (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2017). As described by Deci and Ryan, (2000), relatedness is the need “to love and care and to be loved and cared for” (p. 231). In this way, individuals experience relatedness when they interact with others who are involved and emotionally available and who express affection, warmth, caring, and nurturance (Ryan & Deci, 2017), and tend to prefer relationships in which this is mutual (Baumeister & Leary, 1995).

In adolescence, this need for relatedness is accompanied by the developmental need to feel accepted and popular among peers (Brown & Larson, 2009; Steinberg, 2014), as adolescents gradually shift their focus to building relationships outside of the family (Lerner & Steinberg, 2009; Weeks & Asher, 2012). These developmentally appropriate social goals serve as strong motivators for social media engagement among adolescents (Nadkarni & Hofmann, 2012). Indeed, establishing intimacy and emotional connection with others is an important developmental milestone in adolescence (Shulman et al., 1997), and research suggests that youth use social media to connect with friends, support and cultivate emotional ties, and sometimes foster new relationships (Lenhart, 2015). In fact, youth report that the desire to feel more connected to others is one of the key drivers of their SNS use (Anderson & Jiang, 2018), supporting the notion that they engage in this behavior as a means of relatedness need satisfaction. One means by which social media engagement can help youth foster feelings of connection and intimacy is through self-disclosure, something that many adolescents consider to be easier to do in online interactions when compared to face to face (Valkenburg et al., 2011). Indeed, as self-disclosure facilitates relationship closeness, communications through SNS can lead to more intimate and higher quality friendships among adolescents (Michikyan & Suárez-Orozco, 2015), thereby contributing to their relatedness need satisfaction.

In line with notions of SDT, which posits that thwarted psychological needs may function as particularly strong motivators for behavior (Ryan & Deci, 2017), some have proposed that social media engagement may be driven by a desire to satisfy thwarted psychological needs. For example, a series of studies by Sheldon et al. (2011) has demonstrated that feelings of disconnectedness resulted in attempts to satisfy thwarted relatedness needs through increased use of Facebook. In this way, using Facebook appeared to function as a coping strategy allowing for the compensation of thwarted relatedness need satisfaction in the offline context. This same logic can be applied to other SNSs (e.g., Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat), whereby youth turn to these technologies to satisfy their thwarted needs for relatedness. In this way, it is possible that youth who feel disconnected in their offline lives turn to SNS to satisfy their need for relatedness. Notably, the idea of using social media to overcome thwarted psychological needs may be particularly relevant for adolescents who have difficulty connecting with others in face-to-face contexts. For these youth, SNS may be used as a means of social compensation and social facilitation to offset a lack of social skills or difficulties with face-to-face peer interactions (Valkenburg et al., 2011). This reflects the theorizing of compensatory internet use theory (Kardefelt-Winther, 2014) which suggests that individuals engage in technology use as a means of alleviating negative emotions and psychological distress which, in this case, results from psychological need frustration.

Alternatively, it is possible that youth with limited offline social networks and poor social skills do not develop quality friendships through social media, but rather spend time engaging in low-quality or superficial connections (Spies Shapiro & Margolin, 2014). This is in line with notions of the “rich-get-richer” hypothesis (Kraut et al., 2002), which posits that highly sociable adolescents experience added benefits from extending options for communication through electronic means while those with limited connections experience more isolation. According to this framework, those with strong existing social connections may benefit from iterative effects such that more online communication relates to more cohesive relationships overall (Lee, 2009). In this way, adolescents with more existing social connections may be more likely to experience relatedness need satisfaction through their engagement with social media. However, for those with fewer social connections to begin with, SNS engagement may actually lead them to experience a deeper sense of loneliness and isolation as their sense of exclusion extends into their online worlds.

This notion of experiencing feelings of social exclusion, and subsequent further need frustration, as the result of an attempt to satisfy basic psychological needs through social media engagement is reflected in conceptualizations of an emerging construct: the FoMO (Przybylski et al., 2013). Theorized to originate from deficits in basic psychological needs, FoMO is described as a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent (Przybylski et al., 2013). The experience of FoMO is said to result from attempts at satisfying basic psychological needs through social media engagement (Przybylski et al., 2013), which instead results in feelings of social exclusion. Specifically, as youth turn to social media to satisfy their need for relatedness, they are exposed to a constant stream of social information about their peer groups. This, in turn, may actually lead them to experience feelings of FoMO, rather than feelings of belonging and relatedness (Przybylski et al., 2013) as they become aware of all of the events and activities from which they may have been excluded. Consequently, this information may further thwart their relatedness need satisfaction and increase their feelings of anxiety, envy, insecurity, and loneliness (Przybylski et al., 2013).

Though the idea of developing anxieties around missing out on rewarding experiences has been around for decades (Simson, 1982), the widespread adoption of SNSs, allowing youth to constantly check in on their peers, has recently intensified these experiences. For example, new technologies such as “Instagram Stories” provide youth with instant access to videos and pictures of what others are doing. This real-time access to information about the activities and social gatherings that they may be missing out on can heighten youth’s feelings of exclusion and/or rejection and further thwart their relatedness need satisfaction. In this way, when adolescents turn to SNSs to satisfy their need for relatedness and decrease their anxieties around being socially excluded, this may actually lead them to experience feelings of FoMO. In turn, these experiences of FoMO can drive further SNS use as a means of satisfying youth’s thwarted relatedness needs, since checking up on other people can lead to temporary relief of these feelings of anxiety (Oberst et al., 2017). Ironically, however, the more adolescents check their social networking accounts, the more they may find social events that they are missing out on. As such, using SNSs to satisfy relatedness needs and reduce anxiety around missing out can actually end up being another source of FoMO and thus further thwart adolescents’ relatedness needs.

In addition to helping youth achieve their social goals, relatedness need satisfaction through social media engagement also contributes to adolescents’ identity development. Indeed, extant developmental research suggests that adolescents use social media for self-disclosure and self-presentation and that these behaviors are linked to their identity development and well-being (see Bartsch & Subrahmanyam, 2015, for review). Specifically, adolescents develop a sense of themselves through their relationships with others, which are heightened on SNS. This, again, is likely to be particularly true for those seeking to overcome deficits in relatedness need satisfaction (Masur et al., 2014). For instance, shy or introverted individuals might find it easier to present themselves more effectively on social media (Steinfield et al., 2008). Similarly, social media can make it more feasible for some adolescents to affiliate with other similar individuals online. This is likely to be especially true for ethnic or sexual minority youth (Ceglarek & Ward, 2016; Hillier & Harrison, 2007; Larson et al., 2002), particularly if such affiliations are not available through their local peer networks. In this way, social media can provide opportunities for adolescents to follow and engage with others who reflect aspects of their identities that they may wish to further explore or deepen. Through seeing these aspects of their identities reflected back at them and through their interactions with similar others, youth can develop a sense of belonging and acceptance (Spies Shapiro & Margolin, 2014), thereby contributing to their relatedness need satisfaction.

In sum, adolescents may turn to social media to satisfy their need for relatedness through fostering intimacy and friendship, in line with the key developmental task of peer affiliation in adolescence (Brown & Larson, 2009; Steinberg, 2014). Despite evidence supporting the use of social media to cultivate relationships (e.g., through affording youth opportunities for self-disclosure; Michikyan & Suárez-Orozco, 2015), it is possible that these benefits only emerge for those with strong existing relationships (e.g., as proposed by the rich-get-richer hypothesis; Kraut et al., 2002). Alternatively, using social media to overcome thwarted relatedness needs may actually further contribute to feelings of social exclusion (e.g., through experiences of FoMO; Przybylski et al., 2013). That said, overall, relatedness need satisfaction through social media engagement is likely to contribute to the key developmental tasks of peer affiliation and identity formation by providing adolescents with opportunities for self-disclosure, self-presentation, and connection with similar others.

The need for autonomy is an individual’s innate psychological need to be the causal agent of their own life and to act in harmony with their integrated sense of self (Ryan & Deci, 2017), i.e., to act authentically in a manner consistent with their true self and to engage in activities not because they feel that they should or must (e.g., because of social pressures, norms, or to look good) but rather act volitionally because they feel free to choose (Deci & Ryan, 2000). In this way, the need for autonomy refers to the feeling of volition and freedom of choice, which is reduced when one feels that they are not able to think or act free of external pressures and influences (Ryan & Deci, 2017). According to Deci and Ryan, 2000, humans have an innate desire to act according to their genuine wants and preferences and to engage in actions that reflect their true selves. In terms of satisfying their need for autonomy through social media engagement, youth may turn to these technologies for a sense of choice, volition, and control over their social environments (e.g., what, who, when, and where to watch, “follow,” and engage on SNS).

From a developmental perspective, achieving autonomy is also one of the key normative psychosocial tasks of adolescence, and youth who lack appropriate support for autonomy are more likely to experience problematic outcomes (Zimmer-gembeck & Collins, 2006). Within SDT, adolescence is viewed as a time of gradual movement toward autonomy as volitional action in which youths’ actions become self-endorsed and congruent with their values and interests (La Guardia & Ryan, 2002). In this way, the need for autonomy in adolescence reflects the need to act free from the constraints of one’s childhood dependence on others (Ryan et al., 1995). From this perspective, the freedom of choice and sense of control afforded to adolescents through their use of social media serves as a developmentally rooted motivation for their social media engagement. Specifically, the opportunities for self-presentation (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010), content sharing (Halpern & Gibbs, 2013), and choosing with whom to connect as well as what to read, listen to, or watch afforded to youth through social media support the satisfaction of their need for autonomy (Karahanna et al., 2018). This is amplified by the fact that most adolescents have their own devices (Vogels et al., 2022), which provide them with quasi-unlimited and mostly unsupervised access to social media. In line with notions of thwarted basic need satisfaction (Sheldon et al., 2011; Vansteenkiste et al., 2019), this motivation may be particularly strong for adolescents who lack an overall sense of autonomy in their daily lives. For these youth, social media engagement may help compensate for their thwarted autonomy needs by providing them with choice, control, and volition in their actions. Put differently, using social media may provide youth whose offline lives feel limited and controlled (e.g., by parents, teachers, and scheduled activities) with the opportunity to exercise a sense of agency and thus satisfy their need for autonomy.

One of the ways in which autonomy need satisfaction through social media engagement can promote the attainment of developmental goals in adolescence is through opportunities for choice and control over self-presentation (thus supporting identity formation). Specifically, autonomy need satisfaction has important implications for adolescents’ identity development by providing them with opportunities for self-presentation, including a means of trying out different aspects of their emerging identities. Indeed, self-presentation, which involves an iterative process of sharing personally relevant information and receiving feedback, is central to identity formation, and social media can provide youth with unique opportunities to share aspects of their developing identities with their networks (Spies Shapiro & Margolin, 2014). In this way, through social media engagement, youth can reveal and express different characteristics of their identities – including aspects of their real, ideal, and false selves, as well as their multiple and intersecting identities (Michikyan & Suárez-Orozco, 2015). Moreover, the asynchronous nature of these technologies can provide youth with the opportunity to carefully construct and curate these self-presentations, as well as tailor their content to specific audiences. In fact, recent work has demonstrated that some adolescents may have multiple SNS profiles intended for different audiences (e.g., one for their friends and one for their parents; Throuvala et al., 2019). In this way, the heightened level of communicative control afforded through social media combined with the ability to select one’s audience is likely to be a strong source of autonomy need satisfaction among youth. Further, similar to the case of relatedness need satisfaction discussed above, this may be particularly relevant for minority youth who may only feel safe to reveal certain aspects of their identity (e.g., sexual or gender identity) within certain online contexts. This has been supported by work demonstrating that youth with different sexual and gender identities may use various online platforms to express and explore their emerging identities (Ceglarek & Ward, 2016; Fox & Ralston, 2016). As such, the freedom afforded by SNS over the types of information youth choose to share as well as how they wish to share it and with whom can support the satisfaction of their psychological need for autonomy.

Despite these potentially beneficial uses of social media in terms of autonomy need satisfaction, an emerging body of evidence also indicates that many adolescents’ behaviors, goals, and attitudes toward social media are fueled by modeling and/or social pressure (Borca et al., 2015). This has been supported by findings from the Pew Research Center (Anderson & Jiang, 2018), in which 43% of adolescents in the USA expressed feeling pressure to only post content that makes them look good to others. This has important implications for autonomy need satisfaction as SDT states that external divers, such as social pressure, are a potential threat to intrinsic motivation and psychological need satisfaction (Deci & Ryan, 2000). According to SDT, external rewards shift the perceived locus of causality such that individuals confronted with contingent rewards, including external forces such as social pressure, feel externally controlled, which undermines their sense of autonomy (Ryan & Deci, 2017; Zimmer-gembeck & Collins, 2006).

From a developmental perspective, social pressure plays a central role in adolescence as youth strive for feelings of belonging and acceptance among their peers (Brechwald & Prinstein, 2011). For this reason, adolescents may be particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of social pressure in terms of their autonomy need satisfaction. Specifically, as one of the most salient contexts of adolescents’ social development, social media likely creates its own form of social pressure for youth (e.g., to present themselves in particular ways, Anderson & Jiang, 2018; and/or to be constantly available, Halfmann & Rieger, 2019; Sheldon et al., 2011) akin to the more commonly recognized peer pressures of adolescence (e.g., to engage in risk-taking behaviors, Brechwald & Prinstein, 2011; McIntosh et al., 2009). These social pressures can undermine adolescents’ autonomy need satisfaction through social media engagement by extrinsically motivating their online behaviors. For example, though freedom of choice in self-presentation can be an avenue for autonomy need satisfaction through social media engagement, the social pressure to present oneself in a particular way can thwart this same need satisfaction. Seeing as SDT defines autonomy as the ability to present oneself authentically and act in accordance with one’s “true self” (Ryan & Deci, 2017), when youth present themselves inauthentically on social media as a result of perceived social pressures, this is likely to negatively contribute to their autonomy need satisfaction, as it undermines their sense of control and volition. This experience is likely to be particularly salient among adolescents with lower self-worth, whose self-esteem may be contingent upon feeling accepted by their peers (Kernis, 2013). For these youth, the pursuit of self-esteem can lead to a sense of ego involvement which extrinsically motivates their social media engagement and thus thwarts their autonomy needs.

Another means by which social media engagement can thwart autonomy need satisfaction is through the addictive features of these technologies driving habit-forming behaviors and thus extrinsically motivated use. Similar to games, where the acquisition of rewards reinforces the gamer into prolonging the gaming experience (Griffiths & Nuyens, 2017), SNS exhibits a plethora of structural features that engage adolescents further in habitual behaviors (Osatuyi & Turel, 2018). In line with the principles of operant conditioning (Roberts et al., 2014), these habitual behaviors toward social media use are extrinsically motivated by the anticipation of a reward and operate outside of awareness, attention, intention, and control (LaRose et al., 2010). In this way, habitual behaviors toward social media can thwart autonomy need satisfaction among youth. Indeed, work is beginning to show that not all technology use is intentional and that the alerts, notifications, and “likes” that are designed to draw one’s attention to their device (e.g., to check social media or respond to a new message) eventually become cues that elicit an automatic, reflexive behavior response (Soror et al., 2015). In this way, as youth use SNS repeatedly, their brains develop a cognitive structure of triggers and actions that surround their usage behaviors and associated responses (Osatuyi & Turel, 2018). For instance, as youth check their social media upon receiving a notification and learn that this is enjoyable, over time, they form a habit of checking every notification that they receive. Consequently, they come to automatically check their social media every time they receive a notification without paying any regard to the appropriateness of the action or whether or not it is actually still enjoyable.

As habits drive addiction symptoms (LaRose et al., 2010) and are required for the development of SNS addictions (Turel & Serenko, 2012), the emergence of social media habits can simultaneously undermine youth’s autonomy needs and contribute to their experience of negative outcomes as a result of technology overuse (Keles et al., 2019). Moreover, adolescents may be particularly vulnerable to the development of media habits as their neural architecture makes them particularly susceptible to context-specific social stimuli (Crone & Dahl, 2012). That is, the maturation of the limbic system (i.e., the social-affective processing center in the brain) in adolescence leads to an intensification of reward-based neural pathways from social stimuli specifically (Crone & Dahl, 2012). Thus, for adolescents, the salience of social rewards (Crone & Dahl, 2012; Steinberg, 2014) may heighten the feedback loop between the cue and behavior response, thereby speeding up habit formation and subsequently increasing the strength of the habit (Shapka, 2019). This, in turn, can thwart their autonomy need satisfaction as what had originated as an intrinsically motivated behavior to act with choice and volition becomes extrinsically motivated and automatic.

In sum, adolescents’ use of social media experiences a sense of agency, choice, and control over their self-presentations, communications, and actions (e.g., who, when, and what to watch, follow, or engage with can serve as a means of satisfying their need for autonomy). This may be particularly beneficial for youth who feel constrained and controlled (i.e., those who lack autonomy need satisfaction) in their offline lives. Moreover, the opportunities provided through social media for youth to carefully construct their self-presentations and deliberately select their target audiences can contribute to their identity formation. That said, recent work indicates that many adolescents engage in social media use out of a feeling of social pressure (e.g., to present themselves in a certain way; Anderson & Jiang, 2018, or to be constantly responsive and available through SNS; Halfmann & Rieger, 2019; Sheldon et al., 2011), which can thwart their autonomy need satisfaction. Moreover, addictive features of SNS can lead to habit formation (LaRose et al., 2010; Turel & Serenko, 2012), which, in turn, can also thwart adolescents’ autonomy need satisfaction. That said, overall, the sense of agency and choice afforded to youth through social media engagement is likely to positively contribute to their satisfaction of the need for autonomy.

The need for competence reflects humans’ desire to effectively master their environment and experience a sense of competence in it. It refers to a feeling of effectiveness and capability that is satisfied by optimal challenges and positive feedback (Ryan et al., 1995). The need for competence is an individual’s innate psychological need to be effective in dealing with the environment in which they find themselves. It is the psychological need to have a personal impact on the environment, the self, and others and to achieve valued outcomes (Deci & Ryan, 2000). In this sense, competence does not refer to one’s skill (i.e., being competent) but rather it is a feeling of confidence and mastery in one’s actions (Ryan & Deci, 2017). People gain experiences of competence through their exploration, learning, and adaptation to social environments (Ryan & Deci, 2017). In terms of social media engagement, youth may be drawn to using such technologies as a means of exercising a sense of effective control over their environment as well as an opportunity to acquire, maintain, or demonstrate skills, knowledge, and capabilities (Karahanna et al., 2018).

Decisions about how adolescents identify themselves, the feedback received on these decisions, and how they view their own social media presence in comparison with others all contribute to their identity formation (Krämer & Haferkamp, 2011) and subsequent satisfaction of their need for competence. Indeed, SNS not only provides a context in which adolescents can exhibit their developing identities but also provides a context in which they can get feedback that may alter their own self-perceptions (Masur et al., 2014; Spies Shapiro & Margolin, 2014). This social feedback from peers can provide youth with real-time information about how aspects of their emerging identities are being received by their peers (Spies Shapiro & Margolin, 2014), and thus impact their identity formation and feelings of competence. Specifically, while positive feedback in terms of these self-presentations can promote the satisfaction of youth’s need for competence, negative feedback from peers can thwart their competence need satisfaction. Moreover, research suggests that adolescents’ experiences of identity formation may be intensified by SNS as they provide a space for youth to express themselves in broader ways and to receive feedback from others, which may contribute to subtle changes and more rapid shifts in their identities (Masur et al., 2014; Spies Shapiro & Margolin, 2014).

In addition to providing an avenue for self-presentation, social media also provides an arena for social comparison with others (Haferkamp & Krämer, 2010). From a developmental perspective, this is a particularly common behavior in adolescence (Krayer et al., 2008), as youth typically engage in social comparison in an effort to affirm and re-affirm that their actions, decisions, and abilities are being accepted by others (Griffin et al., 2017). Be it upward or downward, these types of comparisons can have a strong impact on adolescents’ competence need satisfaction and overall self-esteem (Krayer et al., 2008). Specifically, while downward social comparison to others with inferior status, attractiveness, or success may foster feelings of competence, upward social comparison can thwart competence need satisfaction (Haferkamp & Krämer, 2010). SNS, in particular, may make it especially easy for adolescents to compare themselves to their peers by providing constant access to information about others. Within a developmental lens, this social comparison contributes to adolescents’ identity formation by providing them with opportunities to engage in self-presentation that is subject to peer judgment (Walther, 2011). Indeed, a recent qualitative study by Throuvala et al. (2019) found that adolescents have a powerful need to present an ideal image of themselves online via SNS along with a strong need for its validation.

Unfortunately, there is evidence that susceptibility to peer comparisons may lead to low self-worth and the development of eating disorders, depression, and obesity (Voelker et al., 2015). This is likely due in part to the fact that when engaging in social comparisons online, youth are often comparing themselves to their peers’ embellished self-presentations. Indeed, social media can provide adolescents with the potential to construct positive self-presentations demonstrating their strengths and abilities (Masur et al., 2014). While this can contribute to satisfaction of the need for competence for those who are doing the sharing, it can also thwart competence need satisfaction of those engaging in the social comparisons. Similarly, the opportunities for self-presentation and social comparison afforded through social media use (Mascheroni et al., 2015) have been found to interact with and co-construct ideal standards of beauty, which have a critical and often detrimental role in self-perception, self-esteem, and identity development (Meier & Gray, 2013).

Moreover, according to SDT (Ryan et al., 1995), the extent to which social comparisons impact adolescents’ self-esteem is likely associated with their overall level of need satisfaction. That is, adolescents who experience ongoing satisfaction of their basic needs tend to become secure with themselves and to experience a sense of true self-esteem that is relatively stable and not a source of focus or concern (Kernis, 2013). In contrast, youth who experience deficiencies in their basic need satisfaction in early in life will develop a less secure sense of self-esteem (i.e., contingent self-esteem). These adolescents are more likely to strive for extrinsic validation of their self-worth and thus be more susceptible to the negative impacts of social comparisons.

Seeing as social comparisons through SNS can thwart or satisfy youth’s need for competence through providing information (in the form of peer feedback) about whether or not youth’s self-presentations and emerging identities are being accepted by their peers, the satisfaction of this basic psychological need is also closely tied to that of relatedness. Specifically, adolescents’ experiences of acceptance and belonging as a result of peer feedback received through their social media engagement can satisfy both their needs for competence and relatedness simultaneously (i.e., as they feel competent in their sense of relatedness). Indeed, work by Reinecke et al. (2014) found that satisfaction of the needs for competence and relatedness were highly correlated, likely due to the fact that satisfaction of the need for relatedness through social media engagement can, in turn, contribute to competence need satisfaction. Building on this, it is likely that, just as feelings of social exclusion arising from experiences of FoMO can thwart relatedness need satisfaction (as discussed above), these perceptions can also thwart youth’s competence need satisfaction. In other words, when adolescents experience FoMO in their social media use, this can lead them to experience a sense of social exclusion and failure, as they are unsuccessful in their goal of peer affiliation and belonging. In this way, the experience of FoMO can contribute to the thwarting of adolescents’ needs for both competence and relatedness.

In addition to the need for relatedness, the need for autonomy can also contribute to adolescents’ satisfaction with the need for competence. Specifically, as youth perceive a sense of autonomy in their self-presentations and a sense of relatedness through feelings of social support and acceptance from their peers on SNS, this, in turn, can satisfy their need for competence (Reinecke et al., 2014). Of course, alternatively, a sense of social pressure (thwarting autonomy need satisfaction) and social exclusion (thwarting relatedness need satisfaction) through SNS engagement can thwart their need for competence. However, despite these interconnections, the three basic psychological needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness) are independent of one another (Deci & Ryan, 2000). That is, it is possible for youth to feel competent in a given situation (e.g., after making a successful post on Instagram) without feeling autonomous (e.g., because the post was made out of social pressure). In this way, although rewards such as social pressure may have detrimental effects on autonomy, they can also facilitate the satisfaction of youth’s needs for competence when they serve as indicators of success (e.g., receiving “likes” and “comments” on an Instagram post) and relatedness (e.g., when these likes and comments provide youth with the feeling of being loved and cared for). Thus, while perceived social pressure negatively affects the satisfaction of the need for autonomy, it may, nonetheless, make the use of SNS more instrumental in terms of reaching youths’ developmentally appropriate social goals, as it pushes them to engage with these technologies as a means of self-presentation and affiliation with peers which, in turn, may contribute to the satisfaction of their needs for competence and relatedness.

Moreover, according to SDT, in order to experience relatedness, individuals not only need to receive love and care but also need to love and care for others (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Thus, despite possibly thwarting autonomy need satisfaction, social pressure can lead youth to be more responsive via SNS, providing them with the feeling of being there for others and thus further contributing to their relatedness need satisfaction. This notion has been supported by Reinecke et al. (2014), who found a positive relationship between social pressure and relatedness need satisfaction through SNS. That said, more recently, a study by Halfmann & Rieger (2019) found that social pressure had a negative indirect effect on relatedness through autonomy need satisfaction. In this case, the authors theorized that the autonomy-depriving effect of social pressure counteracts its potential positive effects in terms of relatedness. This is supported by findings from Hall (2017) that feelings of entrapment (defined as guilt, anxiety, or stress to be available) resulted in lower feelings of relatedness. However, despite the potential for social pressure to thwart relatedness needs, overall, Halfmann and Rieger (2019) found that participants reported receiving substantial satisfaction of the needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence in their virtual communications, which in turn was positively linked to their well-being.

In sum, social media engagement can satisfy adolescents’ need for competence by providing them with opportunities to acquire information (e.g., through peer feedback) as well as demonstrate their capabilities (e.g., through positive self-presentations). Notably, the opportunities for peer feedback afforded through social media use can support adolescents’ identity formation and either positively or negatively contribute to the satisfaction of their need for competence. Specifically, while positive feedback from peers can support competence need satisfaction, negative feedback can lead to competence need frustration. Moreover, social media provides a heightened context for social comparison, a normative behavior in adolescence that also plays a critical role in identity formation (Krayer et al., 2008). Given that adolescents often share positive self-presentations on social media (Masur et al., 2014), social comparisons in this context are often harsher than warranted. This, in turn, can thwart competence need satisfaction as youth perceive themselves to be inferior to their peers. However, overall, social media engagement is likely to contribute to adolescents’ competence need satisfaction by providing them with opportunities to feel effective in their self-presentations and receive positive feedback from their peers. Social media engagement can also contribute to youth’s competency need satisfaction by supporting their needs for autonomy and relatedness. In other words, as adolescents successfully experience autonomy in their actions and/or experience a sense of relatedness to their peers through their social media engagement, this can simultaneously satisfy their need for competence.

The COVID-19 global pandemic had a drastic effect on adolescents’ daily lives – and likely impacted their basic psychological need satisfaction through social media engagement. Notably, as governments around the world imposed restrictions on face-to-face social interactions, many of adolescents’ interactions were forced online. In this context, technologies such as smartphones and social media have become essential tools for adolescents to meet their basic psychological needs. Indeed, research during COVID-19 found that smartphones and social media played a pivotal role in fostering adolescents’ feelings of connection and relatedness (Ellis et al., 2020; Parent et al., 2021). Moreover, using these technologies likely helped youth satisfy their needs for autonomy amidst government and parental restrictions (which limited their opportunities for choice or volition). However, as many interactions were forced online, it is also likely that addictive features of these technologies contributed to frustrating youth’s autonomy needs through increasing habit-forming behaviors. In fact, despite this well-intentioned use of smartphones, some studies found an increase in smartphone addiction during COVID-19 (e.g., Li et al., 2021; Serra et al., 2021), which may hold important implications for adolescents’ need satisfaction. As such, it is likely that the COVID-19 pandemic drastically altered youth’s relationships with technology, such as social media, and intensified many of the experiences outlined in this paper.

Overall, by imparting rich insights into the motivational (i.e., basic psychological needs satisfaction) and developmental (i.e., identity formation and peer affiliation) processes underlying youth’s social media engagement, this paper provides a theoretical basis from which to conceptualize adolescents’ basic need satisfaction through social media engagement within a developmental framework. This has important implications for the development of intervention and prevention efforts targeting youth experiencing negative outcomes as a result of their social media engagement. Indeed, this paper outlines how adolescents may be using social media to satisfy their needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness while highlighting how this may further contribute to their attainment of key developmental tasks (i.e., identity development and peer affiliation). Specifically, as adolescents strive for a sense of connection and affiliation with their peers, they may turn to social media to satisfy their needs for relatedness (e.g., through fostering intimacy in their relationships) and competence (e.g., through the resulting feelings of proficiency in these relationships). Moreover, as they begin to explore and form aspects of their emerging identities, social media may once again serve as a means of satisfying their needs for autonomy (e.g., through opportunities for agency and choice in their self-presentations), competence (e.g., through opportunities for positive peer feedback), and relatedness (e.g., through opportunities for fostering feelings of peer acceptance and belonging). Alternatively, experiences of FoMO, social pressure, or negative feedback from peers can thwart adolescents’ basic need satisfaction and negatively impact their identity formation and peer affiliation. In this way, conceptualizing adolescents’ motivations for social media engagement as a means of satisfying their basic psychological needs within this developmental framework can help those working closely with youth better understand some of the complex underlying processes driving their behaviors toward social media and the subsequent impacts of these in terms of their overall well-being.

This paper also has important implications in terms of the conceptualization of existing theories of technology engagement, such as the rich-get-richer hypothesis (Kraut et al., 2002), compensatory internet use theory (Kardefelt-Winther, 2014), and media habits and addiction theories (e.g., Griffiths, 2005; LaRose et al., 2010; Turel, 2015). That is, in line with notions of the rich-get-richer hypothesis (Kraut et al., 2002), youth with rich existing offline social connections may experience more basic need satisfaction through social media use. For these youth, social media may serve as an extended means of fostering close relationships and intimacy with others, in which they are afforded opportunities to exercise a sense of agency over their self-presentations and target audiences. As such, these youth may experience a heightened sense of basic psychological need satisfaction through their SNS engagement, as this context supports the satisfaction of their need for autonomy through choice and control over their self-presentations, relatedness through fostering deeper connections with others, and competence through supportive peer feedback and feelings of proficiency in their self-presentations. From this perspective, those who lack meaningful connections in their offline lives would not benefit from their use of social media for basic psychological need satisfaction, as these contexts would further thwart their basic need satisfaction and may actually enhance their existing sense of isolation.

Alternatively, according to compensatory internet use theory (Kardefelt-Winther, 2014), youth who experience frustrations in their needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness in their daily lives may turn to social media as a means of compensating for these thwarted needs. In this way, social media may provide an ideal social environment for those who are shy or introverted to construct positive self-presentations and interact effectively with others, thus satisfying their needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy. In line with this framework, social media engagement may be particularly conducive to basic psychological need satisfaction for minority youth, as it can provide them with a safe space in which to connect with similar others (i.e., satisfying their needs for competence and relatedness) as well as exploring and presenting different aspects of their emerging identities (i.e., satisfying their needs for autonomy and competence). According to compensatory internet use theory (Kardefelt-Winther, 2014), this process of alleviating negative feelings through technology use can be adaptive and helpful in smaller doses, but if overly relied upon, it can result in negative functional consequences and feelings of technology dependence. Specifically, technological addictions could represent compensatory behaviors implemented by adolescents to escape from the distress caused by need frustration, in line with research suggesting technological addictions are the result of dysfunctional coping (Kuss & Griffiths, 2017). In support of this, several studies have found that reliance on technologies to reduce negative emotions can drive problematic patterns of technology engagement (Elhai et al., 2018; Rozgonjuk et al., 2018; Wolniewicz et al., 2018). As such, the habit of turning to technology to self-soothe may sometimes lead to negative consequences and addiction-like symptoms due to the amount of compensation required to alleviate negative feelings (Kardefelt-Winther, 2014). This same logic applies to notions of FoMO (Przybylski et al., 2013), whereby youth’s attempt to overcome thwarted psychological needs through social media engagement results in further need frustration and feelings of social exclusion and loneliness. Nonetheless, it is likely that adolescents turn to social media as a means of basic psychological need satisfaction as this is a particularly salient context for their social development. However, whether or not this social media engagement results in youth’s satisfaction of their basic needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence likely depends on the quality of the relationships they foster, their proficiency in self-presentation, and the type of feedback they receive from their peers.

Another potential area of concern is around the addictive qualities of this type of technology engagement. Specifically, from the perspective of theories of media habits and addictions (e.g., Griffiths, 2005; LaRose et al., 2010; Turel, 2015), it is likely that, as youth turn to social media as a means of satisfying their basic psychological needs, this behavior is rewarded with feelings of enjoyment and well-being. Seeing as any behavior that is rewarded has the potential to become addictive (Roberts et al., 2014), the perceived benefits experienced as a result of youth’s technology engagement may reinforce this behavior and further contribute to habit formation. These habits may, in turn, pave the way for the development of maladaptive patterns of social media engagement and/or addiction. This may be of particular concern for adolescents who turn to social media to overcome thwarted psychological needs, as this type of behavioral pattern may be reinforced and become habitual, even in the absence of a reward or perceived benefit. Put differently, adolescents may develop a maladaptive pattern of social media use through habit formation that further thwarts their basic psychological needs rather than supporting them. This logic may help explain the observed relationship between social media engagement and negative outcomes such as anxiety, depression, and stress (Keles et al., 2019), as these may actually be the result of thwarted psychological needs (e.g., Campbell et al., 2017; Cordeiro et al., 2016; Ng et al., 2012; Weinstein & Ryan, 2011). In this way, understanding the relationship between social media engagement and negative outcomes in adolescence as a result of psychological need frustration has important implications for intervention and prevention efforts. Specifically, this theorizing suggests that these initiatives should target youth’s basic psychological need satisfaction over their patterns of technology engagement per se. From this perspective, strengthening youth’s satisfaction of their needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in their daily lives could decrease the likelihood that they would turn to social media as a means of overcoming these thwarted needs. This, in turn, may help minimize some of their experiences of negative outcomes as a result of social media engagement.

Overall, this paper provides a comprehensive framework in which to conceptualize adolescents’ motivations for social media engagement, as well as how this intersects with their attainment of key developmental tasks (i.e., peer affiliation and identity formation) and, in turn, how this may impact their overall well-being. Future work should empirically examine the intersections between basic psychological need satisfaction through social media engagement and the attainment of key developmental tasks in adolescence while considering implications in terms of youth’s overall well-being. This work should also consider how this framework may have different implications across culture, gender, and age. Specifically, while SDT is theorized to apply across cultures (Ng et al., 2012; Slemp et al., 2018; Van den Broeck et al., 2016; Yu et al., 2017), implications for the attainment of developmental milestones may be more culturally dependent (e.g., development of a sense of self; Markus & Kitayama, 2010) and thus differently impact youths’ well-being across cultures. Similarly, gender identity may play a role in adolescents’ self-presentations and experiences of social comparison (Haferkamp & Krämer, 2010; Krayer et al., 2008; Meier & Gray, 2013) and thus may also hold different implications in terms of their basic need satisfaction and well-being. Lastly, while this paper discussed adolescence broadly, adolescence is a large developmental period that spans a wide age range. Thus, future work should also consider how this framework may hold different implications at different points of adolescent development (e.g., at age 13 vs. 18). In sum, an empirical examination of this framework which considers the influence of culture, gender, and age would be instrumental to understandings of adolescent social media engagement and its associated impacts in terms of youth’s mental health.

This paper provides a comprehensive model in which to conceptualize adolescents’ social media engagement as a means of both satisfying and thwarting their basic psychological needs for relatedness, autonomy, and competence, as well as how this relates to their attainment of key developmental tasks (i.e., peer affiliation and identity formation) and overall well-being. In this way, this work can help inform intervention and prevention efforts as well as parenting guidelines and educational policies around adolescents’ social media use. Future work empirically examining this framework while considering potential variations across culture, gender, and age is needed to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of adolescents’ social media engagement and its implications in terms of adolescents’ development and overall well-being.

Ethical approval to conduct this study was granted by the University of British Columbia’s Behavioural Research Ethics Board (certificate #H19-03035).

The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.

The author receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.