Leveraging Affordances as a Lens: A Systematic Review of Social Media Benefits and Risks for Adolescents

Paper Title

Leveraging Affordances as a Lens: A Systematic Review of Social Media Benefits and Risks for Adolescents

Publication Info

• Topic area: Social media affordances and adolescent online safety.
• Keywords: Adolescents, social media, affordances, online safety, identity, visibility, interactivity, cognitive engagement, emotional experiences.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Existing research on adolescent social media use often focuses on usage frequency or intensity, neglecting how specific platform features and affordances shape user experiences, benefits, and risks.
• Significance: Adolescents are highly active on social media during a critical developmental stage, making it essential to understand how design influences their identity formation, emotional well-being, and safety online.
• Motivation and related work: Prior studies have explored social media impacts on mental health, peer interactions, and online safety, but lack a systematic synthesis linking platform affordances to adolescent experiences. This paper addresses the gap by applying an affordance-centered framework to empirical studies.

Solution

• Proposed approach: An affordance-centered conceptual framework that maps platform features to user activities, functional affordances, and human-centered affordances.
• Novelty:
  1. Synthesizes U.S. adolescent social media research trends over the past decade.
  2. Develops a multi-layered framework linking platform features to functional and human-centered affordances.
  3. Proposes a forward-looking agenda for cross-platform, multi-method, and developmental research.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) of 66 empirical studies (2014–2024) using PRISMA guidelines.
  • Coded studies to identify platform features, user activities, benefits, risks, and affordances.
  • Developed a layered framework distinguishing functional affordances (e.g., Discoverability, Visibility) and human-centered affordances (e.g., Cognitive, Identity).

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Most studied activities: content consumption (25%), sharing (19%), engagement/feedback (19%), private messaging (16%).
  • Common functional affordances: Discoverability (35%), Visibility (48%), Interactivity (61%), Association (50%).
  • Common human-centered affordances: Cognitive (71%), Identity (44%), Emotional (39%), Social (84%).
• Advantage over baselines: Provides a structured framework linking platform features to adolescent experiences, enabling clearer comparisons across studies and platforms.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Reviewed 66 peer-reviewed studies using surveys, digital trace data, interviews, and mixed-method approaches.
  • Mapped affordances to activities and associated benefits/risks, highlighting tensions like learning vs. misinformation and identity expression vs. reputational harm.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Focused on U.S. adolescents; findings may not generalize to other cultural or regulatory contexts.
  • Abstracted social context; future research should model peer norms and developmental stages as moderators.
  • Rapid platform evolution may render some conclusions outdated; framework should be revisited periodically.

Summary

This paper develops an affordance-centered framework to systematically analyze how social media platform features shape adolescent experiences. By reviewing 66 empirical studies, it identifies key functional (e.g., Discoverability, Visibility) and human-centered (e.g., Cognitive, Identity) affordances that influence activities like content consumption, sharing, and private messaging. The findings highlight tensions between benefits (e.g., learning, connection) and risks (e.g., misinformation, reputational harm). The framework offers actionable insights for researchers, designers, and policymakers to create safer, youth-centered social media environments.