More Like this

1. Social Identity, Social Media Use, and Mental Health in Adults: Investigating the Mediating Role of Cyberbullying Experiences and the Moderating Effects of Gender and Age

   https://doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S466965  

   Barragan, Natali; Batista, Amanda; Hall, Deborah; Silva, Yasin (November 2024, Psychology Research and Behavior Management)

   Purpose: Previous research points to a complex relation between social media use and mental health, with open questions remaining with respect to mediation pathways and potential sociodemographic moderators. The present research investigated the extent to which experiences of cyberbullying victimization mediate the link between greater social media use and poorer mental health in adults and whether such indirect effects are moderated by gender or age. Participants and methods: As part of a larger study, US adults (N = 502) completed an online survey that included measures of degree of social media use, cyberbullying victimization, depression, anxiety, substance use, and sociodemographic characteristics including gender and age. Results: A series of moderated mediation models revealed a robust indirect effect of cyberbullying victimization on the relation between degree of social media use and mental health, such that greater social media use was associated with higher levels of cyberbullying victimization and greater cyberbullying victimization was associated with increased depression, anxiety, and likelihood of substance use. There was no evidence that the mediation effects varied between men and women. Age did, however, moderate the mediation effects for anxiety and likelihood of substance use, with stronger mediation effects emerging for younger compared to older adults. Conclusion: Our findings underscore the importance of empirical investigations that shed a more nuanced light on the complex relation between social media and mental health. 

   more » « less
2. The Relationship Between Subjective Memory Experience and Objective Memory Performance Remains Stable Across the Lifespan

   https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.116195  

   Mojescik, Kasia M; Berens, Sam C; De_Luca, Flavia; Ritchey, Maureen; Bird, Chris M (January 2024, Collabra: Psychology)

   Mathôt, Sebastiaan (Ed.)

   The way humans remember events changes across the lifespan. Older adults often rate the vividness of their memories as being greater or equal to younger adults, despite poorer performance on episodic memory tasks. This study explored how the content (place, person and object) and specificity (conceptual gist versus perceptual detail) of event memories relate to the subjective experience of memory vividness and memory confidence, and how this relationship is affected by healthy ageing. 100 healthy older adults and 100 young adults were tested online, using an adapted version of a paradigm developed by Cooper and Ritchey (2022). At encoding, participants generated a distinctive story to associate together (1) a theme word, and images of (2) a famous person, (3) a place, and (4) an object, to create unique events. At test, participants identified the event components using word labels (indexing conceptual gist), and the studied images (indexing perceptual details). Replicating Cooper and Ritchey (2022), we found that young adults’ memory vividness ratings were related to their memory for the conceptual gist of the events, with no modulation by the type of the content recalled. Strikingly, older adults showed the same relationship between vividness measures and objective performance as the young adults. Contrary to some previous studies, we found that older adults obtained lower scores for gist-based memory, and their vividness ratings were correspondingly lower than the younger adults. Across both age groups, vividness and confidence ratings followed a similar pattern, showing a stronger relationship with conceptual gist. Our results suggest that throughout the lifespan, the amount of conceptual information retrieved about an event relates to the ability to reexperience it vividly, and to have confidence in one’s memory. 

   more » « less
3. “It just isn’t the same”: altered routines among older Americans three years after the COVID-19 pandemic onset

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1573302  

   Milan, Rebecca A; Sagehorn, Mallory_A P; Perera, Rohini; Bowman, Grace I; Finlay, Jessica (July 2025, Frontiers in Public Health)

   IntroductionThe COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted civic life, particularly for older adults at increased risk for severe morbidity and mortality. Yet, little is known about the longer-term impacts on their daily routines and how this may affect health and wellbeing. MethodsThis qualitative study utilized data from older US adults who participated in the COVID-19 Coping Study’s three-year follow-up online survey, conducted in April–May 2023. The primary aim was to understandhowandwhydaily routines have changed among older Americans (N = 1,309). ResultsParticipants had an average age of 71 years, with approximately 74% female and 93% identifying as Non-Hispanic White. We conducted content and thematic analysis of open-ended survey responses to identify five key reasons for still-altered routines 3 years after the pandemic onset: (1) COVID-19 risk and exposure, (2) altered access, (3) broader life circumstances, (4) emotional health, and (5) physical health. DiscussionThese findings highlight the enduring impacts of the pandemic on older adults’ routines and underscore the importance of integrating public health strategies that prioritize routine stability to enhance mental, physical, and social health. To support older adults’ wellbeing during and beyond public health emergencies, we recommend strengthening community-based programs, improving access to health and social services, and designing adaptable interventions that help individuals rebuild and maintain meaningful daily routines. 

   more » « less
4. Generational Differences in Understandings of Privacy Terminology

   Moremen, Charlotte; Hoogsteden, Jordan; Birrell, Eleanor (April 2024, Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies)

   Sherr, Micah; Shafiq, Zubair (Ed.)

   Prior work has consistently found that people have miscomprehensions and misunderstandings about technical terms. However, that work has exclusively studied general populations, usually recruited online. This work investigates the relationship between generational cohorts and their understandings of privacy terms, specifically cohorts of elementary school children (aged 10-11), young adults (aged 18-23), and retired adults (aged 73-92), all recruited offline. We surveyed participants about their understanding of and confidence with technical terms that commonly appear in privacy policies. We then moderated a post-survey focus group with each generational cohort in which participants discussed their reactions to the actual definitions along with their experience with technical privacy terms. We found that young adults had better understandings of technical terms than the other generations, despite all generations reporting being regular Internet users. Participants across all generational cohorts discussed themes of confusion and frustration with technical terms, and older adults particularly reported a sense of being left behind. Our results reinforce the need for improvement in the presentation of information about data use practices. Our results also demonstrate the need for more focused research and attention on the youngest and oldest members of society and their use of the Internet and technology. 

   more » « less
5. Age-related deficits in rapid visuomotor decision-making

   https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00073.2021  

   Gómez-Granados, Ana; Barany, Deborah A.; Schrayer, Margaret; Kurtzer, Isaac L.; Bonnet, Cédrick T.; Singh, Tarkeshwar (November 2021, Journal of Neurophysiology)

   Many goal-directed actions that require rapid visuomotor planning and perceptual decision-making are affected in older adults, causing difficulties in execution of many functional activities of daily living. Visuomotor planning and perceptual identification are mediated by the dorsal and ventral visual streams, respectively, but it is unclear how age-induced changes in sensory processing in these streams contribute to declines in visuomotor decision-making performance. Previously, we showed that in young adults, task demands influenced movement strategies during visuomotor decision-making, reflecting differential integration of sensory information between the two streams. Here, we asked the question if older adults would exhibit deficits in interactions between the two streams during demanding motor tasks. Older adults ( n = 15) and young controls ( n = 26) performed reaching or interception movements toward virtual objects. In some blocks of trials, participants also had to select an appropriate movement goal based on the shape of the object. Our results showed that older adults corrected fewer initial decision errors during both reaching and interception movements. During the interception decision task, older adults made more decision- and execution-related errors than young adults, which were related to early initiation of their movements. Together, these results suggest that older adults have a reduced ability to integrate new perceptual information to guide online action, which may reflect impaired ventral-dorsal stream interactions. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Older adults show declines in vision, decision-making, and motor control, which can lead to functional limitations. We used a rapid visuomotor decision task to examine how these deficits may interact to affect task performance. Compared with healthy young adults, older adults made more errors in both decision-making and motor execution, especially when the task required intercepting moving targets. This suggests that age-related declines in integrating perceptual and motor information may contribute to functional deficits. 

   more » « less