Social media use among bisexuals and pansexuals : connection, harassment and mental health

Rosie Nelson, Brady Robards, Brendan Churchill, Son Vivienne, Paul Byron, Benjamin Hanckel

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Analysing survey data from 1,304 LGBTQ + young people in Australia collected in 2016, this paper considers key distinctions between the experiences of bisexual and pansexual participants, and lesbian and gay participants in relation to social media use and aspects of connection, harassment and mental health. Presenting quantitative data, illustrated by qualitative extracts, we found broad similarities in motivations for using social media and how participants connected to peers and communities. There were some statistically significant differences, however, in respondents’ motivations for using social media and who they connected with on these platforms. Importantly, bisexual and pansexual participants reported more negative experiences of harassment and exclusion across all major social media platforms when compared to their lesbian and gay peers. Bisexual and pansexual respondents also reported poorer mental health experiences. These findings speak to the different impacts of discrimination and oppression that young people experience in everyday life. There is a need for focused attention on bisexual and pansexual young people in academic, policy and youth-work domains. Young people will benefit from more substantial school-based education on LGBTQ + identities - beyond the experiences of gay and lesbian people - to ‘usualise’ varieties of difference in gender and sexual identity.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)711-727
Number of pages17
JournalCulture, Health and Sexuality
Volume25
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Open Access - Access Right Statement

© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

Keywords

  • sexuality
  • mental health
  • pansexuality
  • Bisexuality
  • social media
  • LGBT

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Social media use among bisexuals and pansexuals : connection, harassment and mental health'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this