Positive mental health mediates the association between insomnia symptoms and addictive social media use in Germany and Poland

Abstract

About one third of the worldwide adult population exhibits symptoms of insomnia. Some people tend to dysfunctional strategies to cope with the negative symptoms such as excessive social media use (SMU) that can result in the development of addictive tendencies. The present cross-national study investigated whether positive mental health (PMH) could contribute to the reduction of the negative effect of insomnia symptoms on addictive SMU. Data from Germany (N = 579) and Poland (N = 1.237) on insomnia symptoms, PMH and addictive SMU were collected via online surveys. In both countries, we found the same result pattern. Insomnia symptoms were significantly positively associated with addictive SMU, and both variables were significantly negatively linked to PMH. Moreover, PMH mediated the relationship between insomnia symptoms and addictive SMU. Thus, the present findings reveal that promotion of PMH could reduce the effect of insomnia symptoms on addictive online activity. Potential ways how PMH could provide the protective effect and how PMH could be enhanced are discussed.