Adolescents’ engagement with social media

Social media plays an increasingly important role in the daily lives of adolescents. Yet evidence of its effects are mixed, and the field lacks underlying theory to guide more nuanced research. This study explored the psychosocial processes underpinning adolescent engagement with social media. Adolescents (n = 28) were interviewed regarding their experiences of social media, and interview transcripts were analysed using grounded theory methodology. The emergent theory describes a cyclical process of evaluating the risks vs rewards of social media use, experimenting, learning from experiences, and re-calibrating one’s stance towards social media. Two styles of use, active and passive, became apparent, each maintained and defended by numerous strategies employed consciously and unconsciously, with the overarching goal of maintaining a sense of safety regarding their sense of self and status within their social hierarchy. This study depicts a complex, nuanced picture of adolescent engagement with SM, one that encompasses both positive and negative experiences. The model points to the importance of identity and social identity theories, and raises important questions about identity development in this evolving context

The effects of adaptive working memory training and mindfulness meditation training on processing efficiency and worry in high worriers

Worry is the principle characteristic of generalised anxiety disorder, and has been linked to deficient attentional control, a main function of working memory (WM). Adaptive WM training and mindfulness meditation practice (MMP) have both shown potential to increase attentional control. The present study hence investigates the individual and combined effects of MMP and a dual adaptive n-back task on a non-clinical, randomised sample of high worriers. 60 participants were tested before and after seven days of training. Assessment included self-report questionnaires, as well as performance tasks measuring attentional control and working memory capacity. Combined training resulted in continued reduction in worry in the week after training, highlighting the potential of utilising n-back training as an adjunct to established clinical treatment. Engagement with WM training correlated with immediate improvements in attentional control and resilience, with worry decreasing over time. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed

Additional file 5 of Implicating genes, pleiotropy, and sexual dimorphism at blood lipid loci through multi-ancestry meta-analysis

Additional file 5: Table S4. Frequency of lipid-related publications for the PoPS+ prioritized genes

Additional file 2 of Implicating genes, pleiotropy, and sexual dimorphism at blood lipid loci through multi-ancestry meta-analysis

Additional file 2: Table S2. Association results for the multi-ancestry index SNPs with the gene prioritization