The emotion regulatory function of online social networking: Preliminary experimental evidence

Instagram Stories Unveiled: Exploring Links with Psychological Distress, Personality, and Gender

Instagram is one of the most used platforms, and ephemeral stories are proving to be the most used medium for users to share content on the platform. However, there have been few studies examining this type of content in relation to emotional well-being. This study examined the association between the number of published Instagram stories, psychological well-being, personality traits, and gender in a sample of 734 Instagram users from Italy, including 281 men and 453 women, with a mean age of 25.19 years (SD = 7.08). Participants were recruited online and asked to complete an online questionnaire. Differences were found between genders in terms of time spent on Instagram, but not in terms of the number of stories posted in the past week. In the overall sample, a small positive correlation was found between the number of Instagram stories posted and extraversion. When considering gender differences, small effect sizes were observed for emotional dysregulation, agreeableness, and neuroticism, indicating a stronger association with Instagram stories in the female group, and for openness, indicating a stronger association in the male group. Results of multiple regression analyses suggest that among females, psychological variables, including personality and emotional distress, may have a stronger association with Instagram stories. To our knowledge, this is the first study to report these differences. The findings help to clarify how certain characteristics of social media platforms relate to psychological well-being and personality differently in men and women in their journey to using social media.

Mental health memes: beneficial or aversive in relation to psychiatric symptoms?

Composed of an image and short caption, internet memes visually depict an element of a culture or behavioural system, in a humorous way that contextually relates to a particular demographic. Typically, they are rapidly shared, with many variations of the original. Online interaction with internet memes has become a crucial psychosocial aspect of digital culture, which have recently become well established in popular media by consistently maintaining culturally topical and socially salient references. Increasingly, many pages are dedicated to sharing memes related to the symptom experience of specific psychiatric disorders. Despite their popularity, the individual motivation for the observation and sharing of mental health memes remains poorly understood. While several psychiatrists and media outlets perceive internet memes related to mental health difficulties to be associated with adverse consequences, the empirical evidence fails to support this notion. Among individuals experiencing psychiatric difficulties, we explore whether interacting with mental health memes involves adverse consequences, or rather serve as a beneficial coping mechanism. Here, evaluation of the literature indicates that most psychiatrically vulnerable individuals report positive experiences when engaging with such memes. More specifically, they are perceived to facilitate a humorous take on a negative experience and situation, and the perception of peer-support through social bonds with others experiencing similar symptoms. While mental health memes typically depict dark and negative humour, their proximal nature to those experiencing psychiatric symptoms may be considered contextually positive. As such, to conclude, we discuss the role of contextual humour in facilitating cognitive reappraisal of negative thoughts and experiences. Furthermore, we set an agenda to address key methodological limitations of existing work while providing suggestions for future research.

The Use of Social Networking Sites and Its Impact on Adolescents' Emotional Well-Being: a Scoping Review

Purpose of Review

The rapid development of social networking sites (SNSs) has affected adolescents' well-being with great impact on social experience. In this scoping review, we aimed to map out what is known from the most recent literature about adolescents' emotional well-being and the role of emotional regulation skills in preventing problematic SNS use. We used the Arksey and O'Malley methodological framework, and we based the study selection procedure on the PRISMA process. Then, we selected 52 English and peer-reviewed papers from PubMed, MEDLINE, PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, Wiley Online Library, and Web of Science.

Recent Findings

We found both positive and negative effects of SNS use on adolescents' emotions with online self-presentation and social comparison as key mechanisms to explain differences in subjective well-being. The risk of developing problematic use of SNSs is influenced by time spent on SNSs, active or passive use, and adolescents' social and emotional skills.

Summary

This review suggested the importance of emotional experiences and social support in both in-person and online interactions. Future research is needed to provide the basis for a better forthcoming classification of problematic SNS use.

The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale: its psychometric properties and invariance among women with eating disorders

OBJECTIVE

Facebook addiction is increasing, giving rise to limited real-life social networks, loneliness, poor work and academic performance, psychopathology, and low well-being. Facebook entails numerous factors that increase the risk for disordered eating attitudes and behaviors (e.g., use time and Facebook activities such as social grooming and photo sharing). This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS) among patients with eating disorders (EDs) given lack of validation of Facebook addiction measures in this population.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study involving 123 inpatient and outpatient women with EDs (Mean age = 27.3, SD = 10.6, range = 14-59 years) used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), multigroup CFA, structural equation modeling (SEM), Spearman's rho Spearman's analysis, McDonald's Omega (ω), Cronbach's alpha (α), and item-total correlations to examine the structure, invariance, criterion validity, reliability, and discriminant validity of the BFAS.

RESULTS

Correlating the residuals of items 2, 3, and 5 resulted in an excellent fit of a one-factor structure of the BFAS (χ2(7) = 8.515, p = .289, CFI = .998, TLI = .996, RMSEA = .042, SRMR = .0099). The BFAS was invariant at the configural, metric, and scalar levels across groups of EDs, age, education, and marital status. High values of ω and α (.96) as well as item-total correlations (.851-.929) indicated excellent reliability and high discrimination index of the BFAS.  Criterion validity is noted by strong positive correlation with the Six-item Internet Addiction Test (S-IAT, r = .88) and SEM using the S-IAT to predict the BFAS (χ2(49) = 103.701, p = .001, CFI = .975, TLI = .966, RMSEA = .096, SRMR = .0317)..

CONCLUSION

The BFAS is a reliable unidimensional measure. Its high discrimination index and invariance across different groups make it useful for detecting Facebook addiction among patients with ED.

Problematic Social Networking Site use-effects on mental health and the brain

The association between excessive use of Social Networking Sites (SNS) and mental health is raising serious concern among health and education professionals. Problematic SNS use has been associated with an increased rate of depression, anxiety, stress, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and propensity to excessive alcohol use. It may also lead to vulnerability to aggression, cyberbullying and fear of missing out (FOMO). There is little evidence for cognitive impairments, but there is some preliminary event-related potentials (ERPs) evidence for inefficiency in allocating and monitoring resources and inhibitory control. Problematic SNS has been associated with the personality traits of conscientiousness agreeableness and neuroticism, and with narcissism. There is evidence for reduced sleep quality and quantity, longer sleeping latency and more sleep disturbance. The few brain imaging studies show some similarity between problematic SNS use and other addictions related to inhibitory-control mechanism, reduced gray matter volumes in the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, and the insula, suggesting rewarding effects of SNS use on the brain. Finally, there is preliminary evidence that treatment with Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) can assist in short-term abstinence intervention to treat problematic SNS use. We conclude that problematic SNS use may have deleterious effects on emotional and social relationships, and more research is required on its effects on cognitive and brain function.

Self-control and problematic use of social networking sites: Examining distress tolerance as a mediator among Argentinian college students

Introduction

Use of Social networking sites (SNSs) is a highly prevalent behavior worldwide and, for some individuals, its use can turn maladaptive. There has been growing interest to identify which variables are associated with problematic use of SNSs.

Aim

The present study cross-sectionally examined whether the associations between different features of self-control (i.e., impulsivity-like traits, self-regulation and emotion regulation) indirectly relate to two outcomes of SNSs (hours of use and problematic use) via distress tolerance.

Methods

A sample of 509 Argentinean college students (70.3% female; Mean age = 21.15 ± 5.15) completed an online survey.

Results

Two significant indirect effects were found: a) higher negative urgency was associated with higher problematic use of SNSs via lower distress tolerance and b) higher self-regulation was associated with lower problematic use of SNSs via higher distress tolerance. Positive urgency, negative urgency and self-regulation had significant direct associations with problematic use of SNSs while neither component of emotion regulation was significantly associated with SNSs outcomes. No significant direct or indirect effects were found between any of the self-control features and time spent using SNSs.

Conclusions

The results highlight dysfunctional self-control, particularly emotion-driven impulsivity and low self-regulation, as relevant components of maladaptive SNSs that seem to operate by decreasing the perceived capacity to tolerate negative affect. In this context, interventions targeting the development and improvement of distress tolerance abilities might have a positive impact on problematic use of SNS.

Affective and cognitive processes involved in behavioral addictions

This special issue addresses the affective and cognitive processes and their interactions potentially reflecting mechanisms underlying the development, maintenance of, or recovery from behavioral addictions. Various specific types of behavioral addictions will be considered, including those already in ICD-11 (gambling disorder, gaming disorder), but also new phenomena that are not yet classified (e.g., buying-shopping disorder, social-network-disorder) and phenomena potentially belonging to behavioral addictions although they are currently classified elsewhere (e.g., compulsive sexual behavior disorder). The articles included in this special issue directly investigate affective processes (e.g., cue-reactivity, craving, mood, stress, social interactions) and/or cognitive processes (e.g., executive functions, attention, memory). The studies involve experimental paradigms, neuropsychological tasks, psychophysiological measures, and neuroimaging techniques. Specific articles also deal with the relationship between affective and cognitive processes. The special issue is complemented by articles covering current debates and reviewing current empirical findings in the field.

The Mediating Roles of Emotional Regulation on Negative Emotion and Internet Addiction Among Chinese Adolescents From a Development Perspective

Previous researches indicated that emotional regulation can be associated with depression and anxiety, which may be an important mediating factor between emotional regulation and internet addiction. However, the mechanism between these associations has received little attention and it is still unclear. This study has examined 716 Chinese adolescents, 341 were males (47.6%), aged 13 to 18(Mean = 14.58, SD = 1.50), using a cross-sectional survey involving Young's Diagnostic Questionnaire for Internet Addiction, the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), the seven-item Generalized Anxiety (GAD-7) scale, and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). Correlation analysis, multiple-group analysis and structural equation modeling were carried out in SPSS Statistics version 23 (IBM, Armonk, NY) and AMOS version 21. Cognitive reappraisal had a significantly negative direct effect on Internet addiction (β = -0.118, p < 0.05). Furthermore, negative emotions mediated the relationships between expression suppression and Internet addiction [β = 0.149, 95% CI = (0.099, 0.212)] and the relationship between cognitive reappraisal and Internet addiction [β = -0.101, 95% CI = (-0.147, -0.065)]. The differences in the structure path coefficients for different development stages demonstrated that recognitive reappraisal showed more protective roles for negative emotion (p < 0.01), and negative emotion also predict Internet addiction more effectively in high school students (p < 0.001). However, cognitive reappraisal directly predicted negative Internet addiction in junior high school students. Therefore, the intervention on adolescents for internet addiction should not only focus on emotional regulation and negative emotion, but also development stages of adolescents.