Latent classes of gaming disorder symptoms by gender: associations with problematic social media use, psychosomatic symptoms, bullying, and social support in adolescents.

The role of self-control in the bidirectional relation between problematic smartphone use and generalized anxiety symptoms among depressed secondary school students: Insight from longitudinal moderation network analysis.

Substance use among youth is a significant public health issue, particularly in low resource settings in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where it contributes to HIV transmission and poor engagement in HIV care. This study employs machine learning (ML) techniques to develop models for predicting problematic substance use (PSU) among youth living with HIV (YLHIV) in Uganda, aiming to identify important multilevel risk factors and compare predictive performance of ML algorithms. Utilizing a cross-sectional dataset of 200 YLHIV aged 18-24 in Uganda, we trained and evaluated six predictive models, through 10-fold cross validation. Model performance was assessed using area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC), and precision recall curve (AUPRC). Subsequent feature importance analysis revealed key predictors of PSU. The random forest model achieved the best discriminative performance with an AUROC of 0.78 (0.01) and AUPRC of 0.75 (0.02). Key predictors of PSU spanned individual, interpersonal, and community dimensions including depression, sexual risk-taking behaviors, monthly income, adverse childhood experiences, family involvement in selling alcohol, friends enabling access to alcohol, exposure to community educational campaigns against alcohol, household size, and knowledge of alcohol effects on HIV treatment. Our findings highlight ML's potential in predicting PSU among YLHIV and provide insights to guide targeted interventions and support policy formulations mitigating PSU effects on HIV management.

The co-development of intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and distress tolerance (DT) and adolescent problematic mobile phone use (PMPU) and their relationships at both the between- and within-person levels remain poorly understood, particularly among Chinese adolescents navigating the highly stressful pre-college entrance examination period in East Asia. Further, the potential moderating effects of early-life environmental unpredictability (EEU) on these relationships are yet to be tested. This large-sample Chinese cohort study seeks to address these gaps through a three-wave design. A total of 4548 Chinese high school students (50.70% female; Mage = 16.87, SD = 0.81) were surveyed at baseline. The study employed latent growth curve modeling (LGCM) and the random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM). Univariate LGCMs identified an average continuous decline in PMPU among all adolescents. Parallel LGCMs indicated that individuals with higher PMPU levels also tended to report greater IU and DT (between-person effects). The results of the RI-CLPM revealed that DT consistently predicted subsequent PMPU and IU, while PMPU also predicted DT and IU (within-person effects). Importantly, all these findings exhibited different patterns of differentiation across groups with varying levels of EEU. In summary, this study highlights the complex relationship among IU, DT, and adolescent PMPU, emphasizing the crucial moderating role of EEU in these dynamic associations.

Childhood conduct problems are associated with problematic substance use in adulthood; however, little is known about what might explain these associations outside of high-income countries where the majority of research is conducted. Data were analyzed from 4599 young people from the 1993 Pelotas Birth Cohort in Brazil. The exposure was conduct problems (age 11 years). Outcomes included hazardous alcohol consumption and illicit drug use (age 22 years). Mediators included police arrest (by age 18 years), gang membership (ages 18 and 22 years), and school noncompletion (by age 22 years). We performed counterfactual mediation using the parametric g-computation formula to estimate the indirect effect via all three mediators simultaneously. After adjusting for confounders (including hyperactivity problems), conduct problems were weakly associated with police arrest (OR [95% CI] = 1.45 [0.97, 2.16]) and school noncompletion (OR [95% CI] = 1.46 [1.22, 1.74]), but not with gang membership. Police arrest and gang membership were associated with illicit drug use (OR [95% CI] = 3.84 [2.46, 5.99]; OR [95% CI] = 7.78 [4.30, 14.10], respectively) and with hazardous alcohol use (OR [95% CI] = 1.60 [1.08, 2.38]; OR [95% CI] = 1.88 [1.07, 3.30]), after adjusting for confounders (including hyperactivity and emotional problems). There was no association between school noncompletion and either outcome after confounder adjustment. There was little evidence for an indirect effect of conduct problems on hazardous alcohol use and illicit drug use via all three mediators after confounder adjustment. Findings highlight the importance of school professionals being aware of the risk for school noncompletion for those with conduct problems. Additionally, programmes designed to reduce substance use in Brazil should focus on young people involved in gangs, and in the criminal justice system.

Cannabis expectancies mediate the association between social media use and cannabis experimentation in early adolescents: A prospective cohort study.

Social support, online social support, and problematic social media use: Meta-analysis and three-level meta-analysis

Indian adults problematic pornography use: psychological correlates and predictors

Investigation of smartphone use characteristics underlying problematic smartphone use by dense longitudinal smartphone tracking

The longitudinal relationship between fear of missing out and problematic mobile phone use in adolescents: Compensation for psychological distress rather than fulfillment of psychological needs

Testing the utility of Mouseview.js for measuring associations between alcohol related attentional bias and problematic alcohol use

In societies around the world, the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) is being fiercely discussed. It is difficult to grasp AI's influence, because AI represents a general-purpose technology, which can be applied in different settings. One product in which AI plays a pivotal role is social media. In this context, for instance, AI is used to provide people with personalized newsfeeds to prolong time spent online, which might result in addictive-like behavior. Many factors such as sociodemographic variables, history of psychopathology and personality traits have been revealed as risk factors for developing problematic social media use patterns. Yet, to our knowledge attitudes toward AI have not been examined in association with problematic social media use. In a sample of n=956 social media users, we observed that positive AI attitudes were linked to overuse of social media as assessed with an addiction framework. The effect size of this association was stronger for males than females. Further we observed that this association was mediated by time spent on social media. The present study shows that positive AI attitudes - although well-known to be positive regarding embracing new technologies - might come with risks for developing addictive patterns of technology use, such as social media.

Relatedness Need Dissatisfaction Perceived in Daily Life Increases Problematic Mobile Phone Use: A Longitudinal Mediation Model.

Background Mobile phone addiction (MPA) has become a growing concern among adolescents, particularly within the group of adolescent athletes in high-pressure competitive environments. resilience may serve as a protective factor, but the underlying emotional mechanisms remain unclear. This study aimed to examine the mediating roles of anxiety and depression in the relationship between resilience and MPA among adolescent athletes. Methods A total of 401 participants (aged 13–19) were recruited from a sports secondary school in Henan Province, China. Resilience, anxiety, depression, and MPA were measured using validated self-report scales. Structural equation modeling and bootstrap analysis (5,000 resamples) were conducted using Mplus 8.3. Results Resilience was not significantly associated with MPA in the direct path. For the indirect path, the pathway from resilience to MPA through depression was significant, whereas the pathway through anxiety was not. And a significant chain mediation was found from resilience to MPA through both anxiety and depression. The total indirect effect was significant, while the direct effect was not. Conclusion Resilience is associated with lower levels of MPA in adolescents, primarily through its impact on depressive symptoms, with anxiety playing an indirect role through depression. These findings suggest that interventions promoting resilience and reducing depression may help mitigate problematic phone use in youth.

In the literature exploring the associations between problematic social media use (SMU) and sleep, the majority of studies focus on problematic SMU as a predictor of poorer sleep outcomes. There is currently a scarcity ofempirical investigationof the reverse causal direction. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the impact of sleep (insomnia and sleep quality) on problematic social media use and the mediating role of motives for SMU. The eMediate study participants (young adult social media users from Bangladesh) who completed four surveys of SMU, sleep, and mental health at three-month intervals were included (n = 426, 49.8% female, mean age = 22.61 ± 1.83 years). Multilevel mediation analyses were conducted to examine the impact of sleep problems on problematic social media use through motives for SMU. Sleep problems significantly predicted SMU for coping, conforming, escapism, social support seeking, and decreasing negative emotions motives, as well as problematic social media use. Motives mediated 41% of the effect of insomnia symptoms and 71% of the effect of poor sleep quality on problematic social media use. SMU for coping and escapism motives mediated the associations between sleep problems and subsequent problematic social media use. SMU for coping with sleep problems and escaping from associated worries arising from sleep problems and real-life difficulties may reinforce use by providing short-term relief and leading to reliance on SMU.

Background: Problematic smartphone use has emerged as a growing concern among young adults and has been linked to adverse mental health outcomes. However, limited research has examined how protective factors such as resilience may buffer the relationship between smartphone addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Methods: Participants (n = 491, X¯ age = 21.22 years) were students enrolled at a university in the Western Cape province of South Africa. They completed three standardized measures: the Smartphone Application-Based Addiction Scale, the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale-10, and the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5. Moderation analyses were conducted using the PROCESS macro for SPSS to examine whether resilience moderated the association between smartphone addiction and post-traumatic stress symptoms. Results: Higher levels of smartphone addiction were significantly associated with elevated PTSD symptoms across all clusters. Resilience emerged as a significant protective factor, exerting direct effects on several PTSD symptom clusters and moderating the association between smartphone addiction and the avoidance and negative alterations in cognition and mood clusters. However, resilience did not significantly moderate the relationship between smartphone addiction and the re-experiencing or hyperarousal clusters, suggesting that these physiologically driven aspects of post-traumatic distress are less amenable to cognitive or emotional coping resources. Conclusions: These findings highlight resilience as a key buffer in the relationship between problematic smartphone use and trauma-related distress. While strengthening resilience may mitigate certain cognitive and affective dimensions of PTSD associated with excessive smartphone use, interventions may need to incorporate strategies to effectively address hyperarousal and intrusive re-experiencing symptoms among trauma-exposed students.

Abstract This study aimed to investigate screen time, addictive social media use, motives, and content, and their associations with psychosocial outcomes among individuals diagnosed with ADHD. High school and university students with ADHD ( n = 100) and a matched control group ( n = 400) completed a survey assessing a large range of social media use variables, psychosocial problems, self-esteem, and social problems. Individuals in the ADHD group had a significantly higher prevalence of social media disorder (15% vs. 3.3%). They rated the motives Escape and Social Compensation as more important, while controls rated Entertainment and Social Maintenance as more important. Regarding content, ADHD participants engaged more frequently with negative and sexual content. Social media variables explained 40–46% of the variance in psychosocial outcomes. Social media use was more strongly associated with psychosomatic problems, but not low self-esteem and social problems, among those with ADHD compared to controls. Our findings provide valuable insights for developing effective prevention and support programs targeting problematic social media use among individuals with ADHD.

Problematic social media use (PSMU) has been associated with social anxiety symptoms, including fear of negative evaluation (FNE), across the literature. Less is known about constructs mediating relations between fear of negative evaluation and PSMU, such as emotion dysregulation and intolerance of uncertainty. Given the high prevalence of social media usage and social nature of these sites, and their high usage in emerging adults, we explored relationships between FNE and fear of positive evaluation (FPE) with PSMU severity, and whether intolerance of uncertainty and emotion dysregulation mediated these relationships. The sample of 372 undergraduate students aged 18–25 (M = 19.9, SD = 4.3) at a Midwestern U.S. University (65.6% or n = 244 female) completed a web survey to assess the relations between fears of evaluation, emotion dysregulation, intolerance of uncertainty, and PSMU severity in a cross-sectional design. Structural equation modeling results demonstrated significant direct pathways between intolerance of uncertainty and emotion dysregulation with FNE (β = .67; β = .59, respectively; ps < .01) and PSMU severity (β = .30, β = .29, respectively; ps < .01). Indirect effect testing indicated that intolerance of uncertainty (β = .21, p < .001) and emotion dysregulation (β = .17, p < .001) mediated relations between FNE (but not FPE) and PSMU severity. Results provide support for the mediating roles of intolerance of uncertainty and emotion dysregulation in the relationship between FNE and PSMU severity. Results are discussed in context of prior work on fear of evaluation, PSMU, and relevant transdiagnostic psychopathology processes.

Historical trauma and ongoing systemic inequities contribute to elevated levels of anxiety and problematic alcohol use among American Indians. The current study examines the relationship between recent trauma and problematic alcohol use, testing anxiety as a mediator and self-compassion as a moderator. A sample of 727 American Indian adults completed measures of recent traumatic experiences, anxiety, problematic alcohol use, and self-compassion. Results indicated that anxiety mediated the relationship between trauma and alcohol use, suggesting that individuals with greater recent trauma exposure engage in increased problematic drinking partly due to increased anxiety. Contrary to expectations, rather than buffering the impact of trauma on anxiety, self-compassion strengthened the trauma-anxiety link. The current findings highlight the complexity of self-compassion as a protective factor and suggest a context-dependent effect. Interventions should consider both cultural and emotional processing factors in utilizing self-compassion to address trauma-related alcohol use.

Objectives: This study aims to investigate the differences between specific attachment patterns regarding the tendency to use certain substances in a large general population sample. Methods: A total sample of 616 German-speaking participants (61.9% female; Mean age = 30 years, SD = 9.53) was investigated with the Adult Attachment Scale (AAS) and the WHO Alcohol, Smoking, and Substance Involvement Screening Test (WHO-ASSIST). Based on an initial cluster analysis of the AAS results, four attachment clusters were identified (secure, avoidant, anxious and disorganized). These groups were then compared in terms of their drug of choice. Results: Findings indicated several significant differences between attachment clusters. Specifically, disorganized attachment patterns showed increased tendencies regarding tranquilizers and opioid abuse compared to avoidant, anxious and secure attachment patterns. Discussion: Results underscore previous observations regarding the increased vulnerability of disorganized attached individuals in terms of problematic substance use and highlight its specific connection to sedative substances. Theoretical and clinical implications of this finding are discussed.