The Mediating Role of Self/Everyday Creativity and Depression on the Relationship Between Creative Personality Traits and Problematic Social Media Use Among Emerging Adults

Addiction-Prone Personality and Creative Cognitive Styles: A Moderated Mediation Model of Novelty Seeking and Depression Tendency

This study attempted to examine the mechanism of the impact of Addiction-Prone Personality (APP) on creative cognitive styles (idea generation, idea selection), especially to explore the mediating role of novelty seeking and the moderating role of depression tendency on the relationship between APP and creative cognitive styles. College students (N = 576, 79% female) participated in and completed measures of APP, idea generation and selection, novelty seeking, and depression tendency. Results showed that (1) APP was positively related with idea generation while negatively related with idea selection; (2) novelty seeking played a partial mediating role in the relationship between APP and idea generation and a suppressing effect between APP and idea selection; (3) depression tendency moderated the indirect relationship between APP and creative cognitive styles through novelty seeking. Therefore, APP has different indirect effects on idea generation and idea selection via novelty seeking. When there was a higher depression tendency, there was a stronger indirect effect. The study highlights the significant importance of the underlying processes between APP and creative cognitive styles and offers implications for rethinking the relationship between addiction and creativity.

Problematic smartphone use and specific problematic Internet uses among university students and associated predictive factors: a systematic review

University students are a high-risk population with problematic online behaviours that include generalized problematic Internet/smartphone use and specific problematic Internet uses (for example, social media or gaming). The study of their predictive factors is needed in order to develop preventative strategies. This systematic review aims to understand the current state of play by examining the terminology, assessment instruments, prevalence, and predictive factors associated with problematic smartphone use and specific problematic Internet uses in university students. A literature review was conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines using four major databases. A total of 117 studies were included, divided into four groups according to the domain of problem behaviour: problematic smartphone use (n = 67), problematic social media use (n = 39), Internet gaming disorder (n = 9), and problematic online pornography use (n = 2). Variability was found in terminology, assessment tools, and prevalence rates in the four groups. Ten predictors of problematic smartphone use, five predictors of problematic social media use, and one predictor of problematic online gaming were identified. Negative affectivity is found to be a common predictor for all three groups, while social media use, psychological well-being, and Fear of Missing Out are common to problematic smartphone and social media use. Our findings reaffirm the need to reach consistent diagnostic criteria in cyber addictions and allow us to make progress in the investigation of their predictive factors, thus allowing formulation of preventive strategies.

Developmental assets, creativity, thriving, and mental health among Malaysian emerging adults

This study was part of a larger cross-national research project at the Norway's University of Bergen, which involved participants from over 30 countries. This undertaking delves into developmental assets, creativity, and thriving, and the part they play in determining mental health. Thus, this study examined the developmental assets (internal assets: support, empowerment, boundaries, and expectations and creative use of time; external assets: commitment to learning, positive identity, positive values, and social competencies), creativity, thriving, and their importance to mental health in a sample of Malaysian emerging adults. This study was based on a sample of 394 undergraduate students, comprising 264 females and 130 males, ranging between the ages of 18 and 26 years (M = 21.5). Two subscales of the Reisman diagnostic creativity assessment (RDCA) were used to measure creativity (originality and fluency). Meanwhile, thriving indicators of Search Institute were used to measure thriving while the short form of the mental health continuum (MHC-SF) for adolescents was used to measure mental health. An online Google form was used to collect data from university students enrolled in both public and private universities. The correlation analysis results revealed that all the variables were positively correlated to each other and that the relationship between development assets, creativity, thriving, and mental health ranged from weak to moderate. Multiple regression (stepwise) analysis produced four models that indicated that positive identity, support, creativity, and thriving have a significant influence on mental health among emerging adults. Further, analyses using the PROCESS procedure demonstrated significant indirect effects of positive identity and support on mental health through its effects on creativity and thriving. As such, it is our recommendation that mental health practitioners tailor their treatment approach to include positive identity, support, creativity, and thriving in their sessions with Malaysian emerging adults.

Social Networking Site Use and Loneliness: A Meta-Analysis

The popularity of social networking sites (SNSs) has drawn researchers' attention in recent years, and a large amount of efforts have been made to explore the association between SNS use and loneliness, however, they provided mixed results. This meta-analysis was conducted to confirm the relationship, based on 82 articles consisting of 90 independent samples with a total of 48,383 participants. A random-effects model was used to analyze main effects and revealed that SNS use and loneliness were weakly, yet significantly positively correlated (r = 0.052). The type of SNS use moderated the relationship. Specifically, abnormal and passive SNS use was significantly and positively correlated with loneliness; however, no significant differences were observed in the relationships between general and active use of SNSs and loneliness. In addition, the moderating effects of gender, age, and culture were not significant.

Problematic Social Media Use in Adolescents and Young Adults: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Technology is ever evolving, with more and more diverse activities becoming possible on screen-based devices. However, participating in a heavy screen-based lifestyle may come at a cost. Our hypothesis was that problematic social media use increased the prevalence of mental health outcomes.

OBJECTIVE

This study seeks to systematically examine problematic social media use in youth and its association with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress.

METHODS

A systematic search was conducted to identify studies in adolescents and young adults, using the databases Engineering Village, Psycinfo, Pubmed, and Web of Science. A total of 18 studies were identified, with a total of 9269 participants in our review and included in the meta-analysis.

RESULTS

Our metaregression shows moderate but statistically significant correlations between problematic social media use and depression (r=0.273, P<.001), anxiety (r=0.348, P<.001), and stress (r=0.313, P<.001). We did not find evidence of heterogeneity of these summary correlations by age, gender, or year of publication.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides further evidence of the association between problematic social media use and negative mental health among adolescents and young adults and supports future research to focus on the underlying mechanisms of problematic use of social media.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

PROSPERO CRD42021222309; https://tinyurl.com/2p9y4bjx.

A meta-analysis of the problematic social media use and mental health

BACKGROUND

Although previous meta-analyses were conducted to quantitatively synthesize the relation between problematic social media (SM) use and mental health, they focused on Facebook addiction.

AIMS

The purpose of this meta-analysis is to examine this relation by extending the research scope via the inclusion of studies examining problematic use of all platforms.

METHOD

One hundred and thirty-three independent samples (N =244,676) were identified.

RESULTS

As expected, the mean correlations between problematic SM use and well-being are negative, while those between problematic SM use and distress are positive. Life satisfaction and self-esteem are commonly used to represent well-being, while depression and loneliness are usually used to indicate distress. The mean correlations of problematic SM use with life satisfaction and self-esteem are small, whereas those of problematic SM use with depression and loneliness are moderate. The moderating effects of publication status, instruments, platforms and mean age are not significant.

CONCLUSIONS

The magnitude of the correlations between problematic SM use and mental health indicators can generalize across most moderator conditions.