Abstract
(1) Background: Temporal relationships between nomophobia (anxiety related to ‘no mobile phone phobia’), addictive use of social media, and insomnia are understudied. The present study aimed to use a longitudinal design to investigate temporal relationships between nomophobia, addictive use of social media, and insomnia among Iranian adolescents; (2) Methods: A total of 1098 adolescents (600 males; 54.6%; age range = 13 to 19) were recruited from 40 randomly selected classes in Qazvin, Iran. They completed baseline assessments. The same cohort was invited to complete three follow-up assessments one month apart. Among the 1098 adolescents, 812 (400 males; 49.3%; age range = 13 to 18) completed the baseline and three follow-up assessments. In each assessment, the participants completed three questionnaires, including the Nomophobia Questionnaire (NMP-Q), Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS), and Insomnia Severity Index (ISI); (3) Results: Multilevel linear mixed-effects regression analyses showed that participants demonstrated increased insomnia longitudinally over 3 months (B = 0.12 and 0.19; p = 0.003 and <0.001). Insomnia was associated with nomophobia (B = 0.20; p < 0.001) and addictive use of social media (B = 0.49; p < 0.001). Nomophobia and addictive use of social media interacted with time in associations with insomnia as demonstrated by significant interaction terms (B = 0.05; p < 0.001 for nomophobia; B = 0.13; p < 0.001 for addictive use of social media); (4) Conclusions: Both nomophobia and addictive use of social media are potential risk factors for adolescent insomnia. The temporal relationship between the three factors suggests that parents, policymakers, and healthcare providers may target reducing nomophobia and addictive use of social media to improve adolescents’ sleep.
Highlights
To promote healthy development, good sleep is important for youth because it is vital for better cognitive and emotional processing [1,2]
The present findings support the two hypotheses that (i) changes in levels of nomophobia are associated with changes in insomnia severity and greater nomophobia is associated with more severe insomnia; (ii) changes in levels of addictive use of social media are associated with changes in insomnia severity, and greater addictive use of social media is associated with more severe insomnia
The present study showed that the impacts of nomophobia and addictive use of social media on insomnia increased over time
Summary
Good sleep (including sleep quality, sleep length, and sleep efficiency) is important for youth because it is vital for better cognitive and emotional processing [1,2]. Better cognitive and emotional processing promotes appropriate social interaction and learning throughout developmental epochs. Given changes in digital technologies and their use, use of smartphones, tablets, and other devices may interfere with sleep, as evidenced by associations between internet addiction and poor sleep in a recent meta-analysis [7] and the negative associations between screen time use and sleep [8,9,10]. Among internet-related concerns, problematic social media use Most studies linking poor sleep and addictive use of social media are cross-sectional, thereby providing little insight into directionality. Given that sleep is a broad concept, we intend to focus on one type of sleep disorders (i.e., insomnia) in the present study
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