The current study examined the effects of speaking a minority language (i.e. speaking the Welsh language in Wales) on the relationship between social media usage, social media dependency [SMD], depression and self-esteem for adolescents using both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs. 1709 pupils (844 primary Cymraeg-speakers [i.e. people who primarily speak the Welsh language]; 865 primary English-speakers) at secondary schools in Wales were compared. Moderation analysis found depression exerted a stronger influence upon the relationship between social media usage and self-esteem for primary Cymraeg-speakers than for primary English-speakers. A longitudinal analysis over 9 months found the association between earlier SMD and later worse self-esteem was greater than that between earlier lower self-esteem and later SMD for primary Cymraeg-speakers, which was true for lower-depressed and higher-depressed participants. However, for English-speakers, earlier lower self-esteem was related to later greater SMD for lower-depressed participants. For higher-depressed primary English-speakers, this pattern became more pronounced, and there was a positive relationship between earlier SMD and later self-esteem. Implications are discussed within a linguistic context.

In written and spoken communications, figures of speech (e.g., metaphors and synecdoche) are often used as an aid to help convey abstract or less tangible concepts. However, the benefits of using rhetorical illustrations or embellishments in visualization have so far been inconclusive. In this work, we report an empirical study to evaluate hypotheses that visual embellishments may aid memorization, visual search and concept comprehension. One major departure from related experiments in the literature is that we make use of a dual-task methodology in our experiment. This design offers an abstraction of typical situations where viewers do not have their full attention focused on visualization (e.g., in meetings and lectures). The secondary task introduces "divided attention", and makes the effects of visual embellishments more observable. In addition, it also serves as additional masking in memory-based trials. The results of this study show that visual embellishments can help participants better remember the information depicted in visualization. On the other hand, visual embellishments can have a negative impact on the speed of visual search. The results show a complex pattern as to the benefits of visual embellishments in helping participants grasp key concepts from visualization.