Problematic social media use: results from a large-scale nationally representative adolescent sample

Despite social media use being one of the most popular activities among adolescents, prevalence estimates among teenage samples of social media (problematic) use are lacking in the field. The present study surveyed a nationally representative Hungarian sample comprising 5,961 adolescents as part of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD). Using the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS) and based on latent profile analysis, 4.5% of the adolescents belonged to the at-risk group, and reported low self-esteem, high level of depression symptoms, and elevated social media use. Results also demonstrated that BSMAS has appropriate psychometric properties. It is concluded that adolescents at-risk of problematic social media use should be targeted by school-based prevention and intervention programs

The mediating effect of motivations between psychiatric distress and gaming disorder among esport gamers and recreational gamers

Research examining the relationship between gaming disorder, gaming motivations, and mental health is increasing, but the types of gaming use, such as recreational gaming and esports are not commonly distinguished. The present study compared recreational gamers and esport gamers (N = 4284) on a number of variables including game time, gaming motivations, severity of gaming disorder, and psychiatric symptoms. Additionally, the mediating effect of gaming motivations among esport and recreational gamers between psychiatric distress and problematic gaming was examined. Results showed that esport gamers spent significantly more time playing video games both on weekdays and weekend days than recreational gamers. Moreover, esport gamers had higher scores on social, competition, and skill development gaming motivations than recreational gamers. The mediation model demonstrated a significant positive direct and significant mediated effect via escapism (i.e., gaming excessively to avoid real life problems) between the higher levels of psychiatric distress and gaming disorder. However, esport and recreational gamers showed no significant differences in the model. The escapism motive appeared to be the common predictor of problematic gaming among both esport and recreational gamers. Future studies should focus on exploring escapism's mechanism in different subgroups of gamers in relation to problematic gaming to help the development of prevention, intervention, and treatment programs