Social media has rapidly transformed the ways in which adolescents socialize and interact with the world, which has contributed to ongoing public debate about whether social media is helping or harming adolescents. The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified both the challenges and opportunities of adolescents’ social-media use, which necessitates revisiting the conversation around teens and social media. In this article, we discuss key aspects of adolescent social-media use and socioemotional well-being and outline how these issues may be amplified in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We use this as a springboard to outline key future research directions for the field, with the goal of moving away from reductionist approaches and toward a more nuanced perspective to understand the who, what, and when of social-media use and its impact on adolescent well-being. We conclude with a commentary on how psychological science can inform the translation of research to provide evidence-based recommendations for adolescent social-media use.

社交媒体迅速改变了青少年社交和与世界互动的方式，这促成了关于社交媒体是帮助还是伤害青少年的持续公开辩论。COVID-19 大流行放大了青少年使用社交媒体的挑战和机遇，因此有必要重新审视围绕青少年和社交媒体的对话。在本文中，我们讨论了青少年社交媒体使用和社会情绪健康的关键方面，并概述了这些问题在 COVID-19 大流行的背景下如何被放大。我们以此为跳板来概述该领域未来的主要研究方向，目标是摆脱还原论方法，转向更细致入微的视角来了解谁、什么，以及何时使用社交媒体及其对青少年幸福感的影响。最后，我们评论了心理科学如何为研究的翻译提供信息，从而为青少年社交媒体的使用提供基于证据的建议。