Curating Digital Coping Ecologies: How Queer Emerging Adults Use Social Media to Support Their Mental Health

Paper Title

Curating Digital Coping Ecologies: How Queer Emerging Adults Use Social Media to Support Their Mental Health

Publication Info

• Topic area: Social media use for mental health self-management among queer emerging adults.
• Keywords: Queer emerging adults, social media, mental health, digital coping ecologies, HCI, minority stress, self-management strategies, identity development, platform curation, digital well-being.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Existing research on queer individuals’ digital experiences has focused on risks and isolated behaviors on single platforms, leaving a gap in understanding how queer emerging adults (EAs) integrate multiple strategies across platforms to manage mental health.
• Significance: Queer EAs face unique mental health challenges due to minority stress and developmental tasks, making it critical to understand how they curate digital tools for self-management.
• Motivation and related work: Prior studies document risks (e.g., harassment, algorithmic bias) and benefits (e.g., affirmation, connection) of digital spaces for queer individuals. However, these studies often neglect the holistic, adaptive processes queer EAs use to assemble “technology kits” for mental health across multiple platforms.

Solution

• Proposed approach: The study introduces the concept of "digital coping ecologies," examining how queer EAs curate social media platforms and strategies to support their mental health.
• Novelty:
  1. Identifies three distinct engagement profiles (High, Moderate, Low) of social media use for mental health self-management.
  2. Demonstrates how queer EAs assemble personalized technology kits across platforms and strategies.
  3. Highlights the dual role of social media as both supportive and potentially harmful.
  4. Proposes design considerations for supporting queer EAs’ digital coping ecologies.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted a cross-sectional survey of 313 queer EAs in the U.S.
  • Used Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) to identify patterns of engagement across five strategies: information seeking, social connection, sharing/self-disclosure, emotion regulation, and uplifting content.
  • Analyzed open-ended responses qualitatively to explore platform features and individual factors influencing curation.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Three engagement profiles: High Engagement (32.9%), Moderate Engagement (41.9%), and Low Engagement (24.3%).
  • High Engagement group used all five strategies broadly; Moderate group prioritized emotion regulation and uplifting content but engaged less in sharing; Low group showed minimal engagement.
  • Higher mental health symptom severity (e.g., depression, anxiety) correlated with broader engagement, but outness did not significantly influence engagement patterns.
  • TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube were the most frequently used platforms for mental health support.
• Advantage over baselines: Moves beyond platform-specific analyses to reveal how queer EAs integrate multiple platforms and strategies into adaptive, personalized systems.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Quantitative: LPA with mental health indicators (depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness) and outness as distal outcomes.
  • Qualitative: Deductive coding of open-ended responses to identify themes in platform use and features.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Limited to U.S.-based queer EAs; findings may not generalize globally.
  • Self-reported data may omit some platforms or practices.
  • Cross-sectional design cannot capture temporal dynamics; future longitudinal studies and intersectional analyses are needed.

Summary

This study investigates how queer emerging adults (EAs) curate digital coping ecologies to manage their mental health, identifying three distinct engagement profiles (High, Moderate, Low). Using a mixed-methods approach, it reveals that queer EAs actively assemble personalized technology kits across platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, prioritizing strategies such as emotion regulation and uplifting content. While higher mental health symptom severity predicts broader engagement, outness does not significantly influence patterns. The findings highlight the dual role of social media as both supportive and risky, offering design recommendations to enhance privacy, flexibility, and support for both active and passive coping strategies. These insights contribute to designing digital spaces that align with the diverse needs of queer EAs.