Exploring social media use as a composite construct to understand its relation to mental health: A pilot study on adolescents

•The study of social media use and mental health benefits from using a composite measure of social media.•It's the social media activities that adolescents take part-in that relates to their mental health and not their gender.•Socializing, following people not known in real life, and online shopping are significantly related to conduct problems.•Playing games and posting content such as videos on social media are significantly related to compulsive Internet use.