Overview
Most research on digital media and mental health measures problematic use through checklists of addictive symptoms. This study takes a different angle: it focuses on how adolescents perceive themselves as addicted to social media or gaming. That self-perception is a distinct psychological experience — more common than clinical symptom thresholds, and potentially important in its own right as something that shapes how young people think about and respond to their own behaviour over time.
Using five waves of data collected over one year from the ABCD cohort, we examined whether perceived addiction predicted subsequent emotional problems (depression and anxiety), and whether the reverse was also true. We also looked at whether these patterns differed between boys and girls. A statistical approach called random-intercept cross-lagged panel modelling was used, which separates stable personality-level differences between people from actual change happening within the same person over time.
Study design
Data came from the ABCD cohort study, a large Dutch study that has followed participants from birth. Starting in 2021, we used five survey rounds collected three months apart over the course of one year, giving us a detailed picture of how things changed within each person over time — rather than just a one-off snapshot.
Participants were asked about depression and anxiety symptoms using established questionnaires, and about perceived addiction to social media and gaming using a simple, direct self-report question. The study was preregistered before data collection began, and ethics approval for the ABCD cohort was granted by the Medical Ethics Review Committee at the Academic Medical Centre Amsterdam.
Analysis is currently in progress; results will be made available here once the study is published.