# Interpersonal Stress, Social Media, and Risk for Adolescent Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · 2024 · $964,336

## Abstract

Project Summary
 Over the past 15 years, suicide rates among adolescents have increased ~60%. Recently, problematic
social media use has been linked to the emergence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB), perhaps reflecting
greater interpersonal stress exposure. Understanding the type, timing, and severity of interpersonal stress
exposure is critical to understand STB risk, which requires carefully characterizing exposures present in their
digital lives through a deep interrogation of real-time interactions within social media. In line with the Stress
Generation Framework, adolescents experiencing psychiatric disorders possess characteristics that increase
the occurrence of interpersonal stress, which may include negative social media exposures. Accordingly, this
project will identify social neural susceptibilities that may increase the occurrence of negative social media
exposures and examine physiological processes that are impacted by negative social media exposures over
time. Our study will include adolescents ages 14-17 (N=300), which will be oversampled for youth at high risk
for suicide (n=200), defined as STB in the past 3 months and/or a past-year suicide attempt. Additionally, we will
recruit adolescents with psychiatric disorders but without a lifetime history of STB (n=100), providing an
opportunity to identify biological markers and temporally refined social media exposures that characterize risk
for STB as opposed to identifying risk factors that associate with psychiatric disorders more broadly.
Comprehensive clinical assessments will be completed at baseline, and additionally, we will probe past-year
user-generated content to assess dynamic changes in negative exposures to characterize core interpersonal
processes across social media platforms, including: (a) online victimization (e.g., harassment, hate speech), (b)
reduced social capital (e.g., reduced social network size), and (c) reduced social support (e.g., reduced
engagement, reciprocity of messaging). We also will collect baseline fMRI neural responses characterizing social
processes and assess chronic HPA axis activity. At the 2-, 4-, and 6-month follow-up assessments, interviews,
social media data, HPA axis activity, and self-reports will be re-assessed. The overarching goals is to examine
the relationship between biological processes and social media exposures, particularly with regards to
elucidating suicide risk. First, we will test whether social neural network alterations increase susceptibility to
negative social media exposures. Second, we will test whether negative social media exposures negatively
impact HPA axis activity. Last, we will test whether negative social media exposures, social neural alterations,
HPA axis activity, and their interactions lead to the emergence of suicide events (i.e., actual, interrupted, or
aborted attempts; active suicidal ideation with method, intent, or plan; emergency department visits or psychiatric
hospitalizations for STB). ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10929531
- **Project number:** 5R01MH135488-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
- **Principal Investigator:** RANDY PATRICK AUERBACH
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $964,336
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-09-14 → 2025-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10929531

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10929531, Interpersonal Stress, Social Media, and Risk for Adolescent Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors (5R01MH135488-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-28 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10929531. Licensed CC0.

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