Strategies for Social Media Data Collection in Teen Mental Health Studies

Research Context and Consent

• 💡 The research focuses on understanding temporal associations between teens' social media interactions and their mental health, specifically depression and self-harm, in psychiatric inpatient adolescents aged 12-17.
• 🎯 Consenting teens for social media data is sensitive; strategies involve framing the study's purpose from their perspective, such as addressing short-term suicide risk or general mental health concerns.
• 🔑 It's crucial to emphasize that the study aims to understand both negative and positive impacts of social media on mental health, not to restrict access, and clarify that data is not monitored live.
• ✅ Participants are informed that they will be personally collecting and sending their data, not that researchers are accessing it directly from social media companies or monitoring their devices.

Data Collection Logistics

• ⏰ Platform-specific data request times and expiration windows vary significantly (e.g., Snapchat data expires in 3-7 days), making coordination challenging for collecting data from multiple platforms.
• 🗓️ Data requests are typically embedded in reminder texts or calls one to two days before in-person follow-ups, with a second opportunity to request data during the in-person visit itself.
• 📝 Teens are asked to have their social media account emails and passwords ready for the in-person visit to facilitate the data request and sharing process.
• 🤝 For younger teens, scheduling concrete follow-up sessions for data upload before they leave, often with parental assistance, is vital to ensure data submission.

Platform-Specific Data Retrieval

• ⚙️ Steps for requesting data from platforms like Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Snapchat, and TikTok change periodically, requiring researchers to regularly update their instructions.
• 📊 For Meta platforms, data is requested via the Account Center, selecting "export to device," "all available information," "all time," and JSON format.
• 👻 Snapchat data collection involves navigating to "My Data" and toggling on all options for "all time"; however, inconsistent security alerts may require waiting 72 hours before retrying.
• 🎶 TikTok data is requested through "Settings and Privacy" and "Download your data," with "all data" and JSON format as defaults, but no email notification means users must check the app for readiness.

Technical Data Considerations

• ⚠️ Collecting "all data" includes metadata (username, IP address), which is valuable for identifying message senders/receivers but frequently undergoes structural changes, necessitating script versioning.
• 🖼️ When collecting media data, especially from teens, it is strongly recommended to use nudity classifiers to detect and filter out inappropriate images.
• 💻 JSON is preferred over HTML for data format because it is more machine-readable, safer for privacy (referencing images rather than embedding them), and easier to automate and clean for analytical purposes.
• 📈 Requesting "all time" data for longitudinal studies is crucial to avoid gaps, as it allows researchers to precisely splice data into specific time frames during de-identification.

Ethical and Communication Best Practices

• 🛡️ As mandated reporters, researchers are obligated to act on any indications of harm, such as child abuse or suicidality, which is communicated during the informed consent process.
• 💬 Researchers emphasize that they do not systematically monitor all raw data live, and other assessment methods (interviews, questionnaires) are used to capture risk.
• 📱 Texting is the primary communication method with teens, and they are encouraged to save the lab's contact number under a chosen identifier to improve response rates and privacy.
• 🚪 An ongoing informed consent process is maintained, allowing teens to change their minds about data sharing at any point, and researchers keep the door open for future participation.