2025 Francis Fowler Wallace Memorial Award: Miguel (Mickey) Garcia

Frances Fowler Wallace, the award’s namesake, was married to John Forsythe Wallace, a member of the Texas House of Representatives and the State Board of Control during the 1920s and 30s. Ms. Wallace died in Austin on July 18, 1972, at the age of 80. As directed in her will, the memorial award provides partial support for doctoral students’ dissertation research on “the cause, treatment, cure, and prevention of mental disease, mental illness, and mental disorders.”  The award provides up to $3,000 for research-related expenses. 

We spoke with Mickey about his research:  

Tell us about yourself. At what point did you decide to pursue a career in mental health research, and what influenced that decision? 

I am currently a fourth-year health psychology doctoral student at the University of Texas at El Paso. My interest in mental health research (and psychology more generally) was initially prompted by a family tragedy when I was 13 years old in which my 27-year-old brother suddenly passed away. It was after this tragedy that I became interested in mental health and psychology. 

Moreover, I was inspired by the first psychology professors I had at the University of Texas of El Paso when completing my bachelor’s degree: Dr. Lawrence Cohn and Dr. Theodore Cooper. From these professors, I was so inspired by how they taught and how engaging they were in class. I worked under Dr. Cohn for three years during my undergraduate training, and I am now working with Dr. Cooper for my graduate training.  

Your dissertation is titled, “Social Media Use and Addiction Among Hispanic Emerging Adults: Temporal Associations with Depressive, Anxiety, and Insomnia Symptoms Using Latent Moderated Structural Equation Modeling.” What questions are you trying to answer with this work?  

I have two main research questions for my dissertation: First, what are the longitudinal relationships between depressive, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms with social media use frequency and social media addiction? Second, do the developmental features of emerging adulthood influence the relationships between depressive, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms with social media use frequency and social media addiction? 

By investigating these relationships longitudinally, I can assess whether greater social media use frequency and symptoms of social media addiction subsequently lead to depressive, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms, or if initial levels of depressive, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms lead to greater social media frequency and symptoms of social media addiction. Further, by investigating the developmental features of emerging adulthood as moderators of these relationships, I can also identify which emerging adults these relationships may exist among.  

What led to your taking a professional interest in this particular topic? 

Previous research has shown that emerging adults are at a greater risk of developing a mental illness than any other adult age group. Moreover, Hispanic groups may experience sleep disparities compared to their non-Hispanic White counterparts, yet few studies have investigated Hispanic sleep patterns. Furthermore, both emerging adults and Hispanic groups are using social media at striking rates. After discovering this information, I became extremely interested in the relationships between technology use, specifically social media use, and mental and sleep health among Hispanic emerging adults, especially as Hispanic populations are not as featured in research yet are the largest ethnic/racial group in the Texas.  

Additionally, I became interested in this research because I am currently a Hispanic emerging adult with previous experiences that have demonstrated to me how important sleep is for mental health and development. So much research in this area has focused on adolescents, however emerging adults also deserve to be researched given the major life experiences they undergo, such as exploring identities and starting college and/or moving away from home, which may influence their mental and sleep health and social media use patterns. Advancing this line of research is crucial for the mental and sleep health of Hispanic emerging adults. 

How do you think your research methods and approach will help you to answer the questions that you’re posing?    

In my dissertation, I will be using Prolific (an online crowdsourcing platform for research studies) to collect data from Hispanic emerging adult participants in which they will complete an online survey at two time points three months apart; completion of a survey at multiple time points will allow me to assess the temporality of my dissertation’s relationships of interest. The survey will assess socio-demographics; depressive, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms; the five features of emerging adulthood (i.e. identity exploration, instability and negativity, self-focus, feeling in-between, possibilities and optimism); social media use frequency; and social media addiction.  

 My plan of statistical analysis primarily involves latent moderated structural equation modeling. This will allow me to analyze how the features of emerging adulthood may influence (moderate) the longitudinal relationships between depressive, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms with social media use frequency and social media addiction at the latent level. With this type of novel analysis, which is rarely used in this area of research, I can model multiple exogenous and endogenous variables simultaneously in which the covariances between such variables can be accounted for.  

Are there any suggested readings you can recommend for those who might be interested in learning more about this topic?  

Yes, I have a few suggested readings on this topic that I am excited to share!

• Alonzo, R., Hussain, J., Stranges, S., & Anderson, K. K. (2021). Interplay between social media use, sleep quality, and mental health in youth: A systematic review. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 56, 1-12.  
• Andreassen, C. S., Billieux, J., Griffiths, M. D., Kuss, D. J., Demetrovics, Z., Mazzoni, E., & Pallesen, S. (2016). The relationship between addictive use of social media and video games and symptoms of psychiatric disorders: A large-scale cross-sectional study. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 30(2), 252–262. 
• Arnett, J. J. (2023). Emerging adulthood: The winding road from the late teens through the Twenties. (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. 
• Roncoroni, J., Okun, M., & Hudson, A. (2022). Systematic review: Sleep health in the US Latinx population. Sleep: Journal of Sleep and Sleep Disorders Research, 45(7), 1–36.