Quantifying the relative associations of time of social media use and addictive social media use with emotional distress among U.S. adults

Resumen de los autores

Both time of social media use (TSMU) and addictive social media use (ASMU) have been associated with depression and anxiety. However, their relative associations with emotional distress remain unclear, and research involving middle-aged and older adults has been limited. We examined associations of TSMU and ASMU with depression and anxiety in a probability-based nationally-representative sample of 1512 U.S. adults aged 30–70 years. Depression and anxiety were measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, respectively. TSMU and ASMU, assessed using the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale, were both operationalized in quartiles to facilitate direct comparison. In separate weighted logistic regression models, both TSMU and ASMU were associated with depression and anxiety. However, when TSMU and ASMU were included in the same models, associations between TSMU and both depression and anxiety became non-significant, whereas associations between ASMU and both outcomes remained strong (p<0.001 for both). Compared with participants in the lowest quartile of ASMU, those in the highest quartile had between 4 and 5 times the odds for depression (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 4.94; 95% confidence interval [CI], 3.20–7.62), and anxiety (AOR, 4.59; 95% CI, 2.76–7.63), even after adjusting for TSMU. These findings suggest that ASMU may be more strongly associated with depression and anxiety than overall amount of social media use among U.S. adults.

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Kim, H., Helvich, J., Lee, G., & Primack, B. (2026). Quantifying the relative associations of time of social media use and addictive social media use with emotional distress among U.S. adults. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/z8jeu_v1