Date of Award
January 2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Public Health (MPH)
Department
School of Public Health
First Advisor
Nicola Hawley
Abstract
Purpose: This exploratory study investigated the social and cultural factors that shape social media use among adolescents in
American Samoa. Methods: This project was a secondary qualitative analysis. Methodological considerations included an
interpretivist approach to epistemology and alignment with the Fa’afaletui Pacific framework. Phenomenology methods were
used to “bracket” researcher biases. A 21st-century flexible coding approach proposed by Deterding et al. 2021 was applied
to the dataset [31]. Transcript excerpts were re-sorted by the index code: social media/technology as a predictor of mental
illness. An abductive thematic analysis, stemming from inductive and deductive reasoning, was used to analyze the codebook
and construct themes. Results: The final indexed sample consisted of 18 key informants (>18 years) and 20 adolescents (13-
18 years). Among the 18 KIs, stakeholder perspectives varied with 8 from the ‘top of the mountain’ (44%), 6 from the ‘top of
the tree’ (33%), and 4 from the ‘person in the canoe fishing’ (22%). Among the 20 adolescents, 11 were female (55%) and 9
were male (45%). Thematic analysis synthesized three themes: (1) messages communicated on social media, (2) influences
of Americanization and Fa’asamoa, and (3) social media fostering connectedness. Conclusion: Both KIs and Samoan
adolescents described social media as a “double-edged sword” that could cause both positive and negative effects on
adolescent mental health. Regulation and cultural sensitivity can potentially leverage social media as a tool in future health
delivery. Findings from this study may be disseminated to inform school-based mental health policies.
Recommended Citation
Desibhatla, Mukund, "Understanding The Current Role Of Social Media In American Samoan Adolescent Lives" (2023). Public Health Theses. 2244.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ysphtdl/2244
Comments
This thesis is restricted to Yale network users only. It will be made publicly available on 05/10/2025