Problematic social media use and psychological symptoms in adolescents
Mojtabai R
Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 18 citations
Review labels
Neutral facts our review recorded about how this study was done. They describe method, never whether we like the result.
How it was studied
- Design
- Cross-sectional study (classified by our AI screen)
- Studied in
- People
- Main outcome
- Health markers and function
Who paid for it
- Funding
- Independent funding
- Authors
- At least one author declares a financial tie to industry
Based on full-text disclosure statement.
Publication
- Published
- 2024-04-07 · Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol · vol. 59 · issue 12 · pp. 2271–2278
- Publisher
- Springer Science+Business Media
- Cited
- 33 citations · more than 100% of similar papers · 24.9× the field average
- Impact
- Top 10% most cited in its field
- References
- 41 works
- Access
- Open access (hybrid journal) · CC-BY
- Research areas
- Impact of Technology on Adolescents · Child Development and Digital Technology · Mental Health via Writing
- Keywords
- social media addiction, temporal trends, adolescents, girls, social media use
- MeSH
- humans, prevalence, adolescent behavior, behavior, addictive, adolescent, child, female, male, social media, internet addiction disorder
1 author
From US
- Ramin Mojtabai · correspondingTulane University
Abstract
Purpose
This study examined time trends in significant child and adolescent psychological symptoms and explored the association of frequent and problematic social media use with these symptoms.
Methods
Time trends in psychological symptoms were assessed using data from five waves of the international survey of Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC), conducted between 2001 and 2018 (N = 1,036,869). The associations of frequent and problematic social media use with significant psychological symptoms were assessed by hierarchical multinomial logistic regression using data from 2001-2002 and the 2017-2018 survey waves. The direction of effect between social media use variables and psychological symptoms was explored using Linear Non-Gaussian Acyclic Models (LiNGAM).
Results
Prevalence of more severe psychological symptoms increased from 6.7% in 2001-2002 to 10.4% in the 2017-2018 survey waves. The increase was especially large among 15-year old and older girls: from 10.9 to 19.1%. The higher prevalence of more severe psychological symptoms in 2017-2018 compared with 2001-2002 was eliminated after adjusting the model for problematic social media use. LiNGAM analysis supported the direction of effect going from social media use and problematic social media use to psychological symptoms.
Conclusions
The findings suggest that frequent and problematic use of social media contribute to the increasing trend of psychological symptoms in adolescents in recent years.
Abstract via Europe PMC. Copyright remains with the authors or publisher (CC BY).
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