Reexploring problematic social media use and the relationship with adolescent mental health

BACKGROUND: Previous approaches used to assess problematic social media use risk inflating prevalence numbers and classify unproblematic social media use as addictive or problematic. The main aim of this study was to take an exploratory view as to how different types of activities, experiences, and motivations on social media are associated with problematic mental health outcomes in adolescents. METHODS: This study is based on a cross-sectional survey of 2023 adolescents (mean age 17.4 years (SD 0.9), 44.4 % males) from 2020. Exploratory graph analysis, Mokken scaling analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were performed on 28 pre-selected items assessing adolescents’ activities, experiences, and motivations on social media, to identify underlying potentially problematic factors associated with social media use. Sets of gender-adjusted multiple linear regression analyses were performed to assess the degree to which social media factors predicted depression, anxiety, well-being, and time spent on social media. RESULTS: Three factors were identified and named: 1) ‘subjective overuse’, 2) ‘social obligations’, and 3) ‘source of concern’. All three factors showed significant positive associations with mental health problems. The factor ‘source of concern’, which identifies feelings of being overwhelmed and concerned over social media use, had the strongest association to mental health problems and simultaneously the weakest association to time spent on social media. CONCLUSIONS: Three identified factors measuring problematic social media use showed positive associations with mental health problems. This lends support to the notion that problematic social media use is a multidimensional phenomenon. KEY MESSAGES: • Being overwhelmed and concerned over social media use had the strongest association to mental health problems and simultaneously the weakest association to time spent on social media. • The results from this study lends support to the notion that problematic social media use is a multidimensional phenomenon.