I’m glad you liked it. The analysis hasn’t been published in a journal. It’s original analysis conducted by me using publicly available Monitoring the Future data.
I used to be able to do crosstabs on MTF but now I can't find the link. I was interested in your finding that girls' happiness relates to communication with parents but not to social media use. I wonder what crosstabs of social media use (first asked in 2024 as you know) with things like loneliness, not being happy, spending time with friends, getting along with parents, having trouble concentrating, not getting sleep, etc. -- problems for which social media use is blamed -- would show. I'm trying to download MTF 2024 but am encountering delays. Any advice much appreciated.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. Just to clarify one point first, I did not use crosstabs in this analysis. The comparison in the essay is between parent–child communication and screen-time limits, not a claim that hours of social media use show no associations with well-being.
When you refer to “social media use,” I think you may be referring to screen-time limits rather than time spent. The essay does not examine how limits relate to outcomes like loneliness, sleep, concentration, or peer relationships. I have not analyzed those outcomes yet, so the post is limited to happiness as the dependent variable.
I worked directly with the .dta files rather than using an online crosstab interface. If it would be helpful, I am happy to share the specific files I used.
Thanks, I understand now. I've been trying for a while to download the 2024 MTF files, and even after logging in, I keep getting a screen saying "service unavailable." So, yes, if you can share the 2024 files you downloaded, it would be much appreciated.
Can I cite your online study? I'm putting together a substack on the 8-10 MTF data, which is a good resource, and I think you hit on a good proxy for poor relationship with parents. BTW, the same issues arise with social media use (daily hours).
Sounds great. Will run a more extensive analysis of MTF next week. Another interesting index of teen-parent relationship is, How often to you eat dinner with parent(s)? 46% of 8-10 graders eat dinner with 1 or both parents 3 or fewer days a week. That strikes me as a change over past decades.
It would be interesting to see the trends in family dinners using Monitoring the Future data. In the book Our Kids, Robert Putnam presents a figure showing trends in family dinners by parental education. The figure shows the share of respondents who answered “agree” to the survey question, “Our whole family usually eats dinner together.” It indicates that the decline in family dinners among families in which both parents hold a bachelor’s degree stabilized in the 1990s, while the decline continued among families in which no parent holds a bachelor’s degree. The data come from the DDB Needham Lifestyle Surveys, covering the period from 1978 to 2005.
Putnam offers a possible explanation for the growing gap in dinner time:
"What happened in the 1990s? It’s hard to tell from these data, but a plausible interpretation is that better-educated parents were indirectly influenced by the growing recognition of the importance of serve-and-return [back-and-forth] interactions for child development—and devoted more time to making them possible, whereas less educated parents were slower to get the word or were leading such complicated lives that family dinners were not a realistic option."
Great points. Is this study published?
I’m glad you liked it. The analysis hasn’t been published in a journal. It’s original analysis conducted by me using publicly available Monitoring the Future data.
I used to be able to do crosstabs on MTF but now I can't find the link. I was interested in your finding that girls' happiness relates to communication with parents but not to social media use. I wonder what crosstabs of social media use (first asked in 2024 as you know) with things like loneliness, not being happy, spending time with friends, getting along with parents, having trouble concentrating, not getting sleep, etc. -- problems for which social media use is blamed -- would show. I'm trying to download MTF 2024 but am encountering delays. Any advice much appreciated.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. Just to clarify one point first, I did not use crosstabs in this analysis. The comparison in the essay is between parent–child communication and screen-time limits, not a claim that hours of social media use show no associations with well-being.
When you refer to “social media use,” I think you may be referring to screen-time limits rather than time spent. The essay does not examine how limits relate to outcomes like loneliness, sleep, concentration, or peer relationships. I have not analyzed those outcomes yet, so the post is limited to happiness as the dependent variable.
For data access, I downloaded the 2024 Monitoring the Future public-use files from ICPSR here: https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/NAHDAP/series/35?start=0&sort=TITLE_SORT%20asc&SERIESQ=35&ARCHIVE=NAHDAP&rows=50
I worked directly with the .dta files rather than using an online crosstab interface. If it would be helpful, I am happy to share the specific files I used.
Thanks, I understand now. I've been trying for a while to download the 2024 MTF files, and even after logging in, I keep getting a screen saying "service unavailable." So, yes, if you can share the 2024 files you downloaded, it would be much appreciated.
OK, on 20th try, the 2024 files did download for MTF questionnaires 1 through 7. Thanks again for your help, and let me see if these work.
Can I cite your online study? I'm putting together a substack on the 8-10 MTF data, which is a good resource, and I think you hit on a good proxy for poor relationship with parents. BTW, the same issues arise with social media use (daily hours).
Of course! Please feel free to cite it. I’m glad the communication measure was useful. Looking forward to reading your post.
If you're using an Ayn Rand pseudonym, I can just cite the substack. If you'd prefer another citation, I can do that.
Yes, it’s a pseudonym. Citing the Substack is perfectly fine. Thanks for checking.
Sounds great. Will run a more extensive analysis of MTF next week. Another interesting index of teen-parent relationship is, How often to you eat dinner with parent(s)? 46% of 8-10 graders eat dinner with 1 or both parents 3 or fewer days a week. That strikes me as a change over past decades.
It would be interesting to see the trends in family dinners using Monitoring the Future data. In the book Our Kids, Robert Putnam presents a figure showing trends in family dinners by parental education. The figure shows the share of respondents who answered “agree” to the survey question, “Our whole family usually eats dinner together.” It indicates that the decline in family dinners among families in which both parents hold a bachelor’s degree stabilized in the 1990s, while the decline continued among families in which no parent holds a bachelor’s degree. The data come from the DDB Needham Lifestyle Surveys, covering the period from 1978 to 2005.
Putnam offers a possible explanation for the growing gap in dinner time:
"What happened in the 1990s? It’s hard to tell from these data, but a plausible interpretation is that better-educated parents were indirectly influenced by the growing recognition of the importance of serve-and-return [back-and-forth] interactions for child development—and devoted more time to making them possible, whereas less educated parents were slower to get the word or were leading such complicated lives that family dinners were not a realistic option."
MTF asked this question only back to 2012 on eating dinner with parents:
0-3 days/week 4+ days/week
2012 55.5% 44.5%
2013 55.4% 44.6%
2014 58.4% 41.6%
2015 58.8% 41.2%
2016 58.3% 41.7%
2017 58.6% 41.4%
2018 58.8% 41.2%
2019 61.4% 38.6%
2020 62.7% 37.3%
2022 62.0% 38.0%
2023 58.8% 41.2%
2024 57.6% 42.4%
Well said overall