Parental Mediation Moderates the Association Between Social Media Exposure and Tobacco and Alcohol Use: Differences Between Elementary and Middle School Students.

Objective: With the popularity of social media among adolescents, the relation between social media exposure (especially exposure to undesirable content) and adolescent tobacco and alcohol use has attracted much attention. This study examined the association between social media exposure and tobacco and alcohol use, as well as the moderating role of parental active mediation and restrictive mediation; differences between elementary and middle school students were also investigated.

Method: A total of 697 elementary school students ages 9-13 and 794 middle school students ages 12-18 were recruited to complete a questionnaire survey.