Adolescent Social Communication Through Smartphones: Linguistic Features of Internalizing Symptoms and Daily Mood

Abstract

Adolescents’ increasing use of smartphone technology has led to unprecedented opportunities to identify early indicators of shifting mental health. This intensive longitudinal study examined the extent to which differences in mental health and daily mood are associated with digital social communication in adolescence. In a sample of 30 adolescents (ages 11–15 years), we analyzed 22,152 messages from social media, email, and texting across 1 month. Lower daily mood was associated with linguistic features reflecting self-focus and reduced temporal distance. Adolescents with lower daily mood tended to send fewer positive emotion words on a daily basis and more total words on low-mood days. Adolescents with lower daily mood and higher depression symptoms tended to use more future-focus words. Dynamic linguistic features of digital social communication that relate to changes in mental states may be a novel target for passive detection of risk and early intervention in adolescence.