Hypernatural Monitoring: A Social Rehearsal Account of Smartphone Addiction

Young people on social media in a globalized world: self-optimization in highly competitive and achievement-oriented forms of life

Research investigating young people's social media use has been criticized for its limited theoretical foundations and scope. This paper elaborates young people's social media activity from a socio-ecological evolutionary perspective (SEE), where young people's online exchanges cannot be divorced from the highly competitive and achievement-oriented modern market cultures in which they live. In highly competitive and achievement-oriented forms of life, young people's social media environments are often constituted as dynamic and evolving extrinsically oriented ecological niches that afford for status and identity enhancement while also affording for peer approval, belongingness, and self-worth nested within, and subordinate to, these higher-order affordances. The extrinsic value organization of social media platforms that serve young people's status and identity-enhancement are embodied by a community of mutually interdependent criteria that are evolutionary-based, developmentally salient, and market-driven: physical attractiveness, high (educational and extracurricular) achievements, and material success. Young people's online signaling of these interdependent extrinsic criteria affords for status-allocation and self-enhancement, where each criteria becomes an arena for social competition and identity formation, enabling young people to build personal and optimal models of social success congruent with their own interests and abilities. Young people's status and identity enhancing signaling of these extrinsic criteria is moving toward increasingly idealized or perfect embodiments, informed by accelerating, short-term positive feedback processes that benefit from the technological affordances and densely rewarding peer environments instantiated on social media.

The effect of childhood harshness and unpredictability on Internet addiction among college students: The mediating effect of self-control

College students are inevitably online and at risk of becoming addicted. Life history theory provides an explanatory framework for individual differences in Internet addiction, and childhood harshness and unpredictability may be important antecedents. However, it is unclear whether and how childhood harshness and/or unpredictability affect Internet addiction during college. In this study, we recruited 483 Chinese college students and assessed their childhood harshness, unpredictability, self-control, and Internet addiction. The results of path analysis showed that childhood unpredictability was positively associated with Internet addiction among college students and was partially mediated by self-control. The effect of harshness on Internet addiction showed a suppression effect, i.e., the direct effect of harshness on Internet addiction was negative and the indirect effect through self-control was positive. This suggests that the high risk of Internet addiction stems from harshness and unpredictability in childhood, but that the effects of these factors are independent and distinct. Self-control plays an important role in this process, but many internal mechanisms remain to be tested in future research.

Problematic use of the internet, smartphones, and social media among medical students and relationship with depression: An exploratory study

BACKGROUND

Students in sub-Saharan African countries experienced online classes for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic. For some individuals, greater online engagement can lead to online dependency, which can be associated with depression. The present study explored the association between problematic use of the internet, social media, and smartphones with depression symptoms among Ugandan medical students.

METHODS

A pilot study was conducted among 269 medical students at a Ugandan public university. Using a survey, data were collected regarding socio-demographic factors, lifestyle, online use behaviors, smartphone addiction, social media addiction, and internet addiction. Hierarchical linear regression models were performed to explore the associations of different forms of online addiction with depression symptom severity.

RESULTS

The findings indicated that 16.73% of the medical students had moderate to severe depression symptoms. The prevalence of being at risk of (i) smartphone addiction was 45.72%, (ii) social media addiction was 74.34%, and (iii) internet addiction use was 8.55%. Online use behaviors (e.g., average hours spent online, types of social media platforms used, the purpose for internet use) and online-related addictions (to smartphones, social media, and the internet) predicted approximately 8% and 10% of the severity of depression symptoms, respectively. However, over the past two weeks, life stressors had the highest predictability for depression (35.9%). The final model predicted a total of 51.9% variance for depression symptoms. In the final model, romantic relationship problems (ß = 2.30, S.E = 0.58; p<0.01) and academic performance problems (ß = 1.76, S.E = 0.60; p<0.01) over the past two weeks; and increased internet addiction severity (ß = 0.05, S.E = 0.02; p<0.01) was associated with significantly increased depression symptom severity, whereas Twitter use was associated with reduced depression symptom severity (ß = 1.88, S.E = 0.57; p<0.05).

CONCLUSION

Despite life stressors being the largest predictor of depression symptom score severity, problematic online use also contributed significantly. Therefore, it is recommended that medical students' mental health care services consider digital wellbeing and its relationship with problematic online use as part of a more holistic depression prevention and resilience program.

The association between problematic smartphone use and symptoms of anxiety and depression-a meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Recent research links problematic smartphone use (PSU) and mental health problems. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the relationship between PSU and symptoms of anxiety and/or depression.

METHODS

We searched for research literature published recently in PubMed and Google Scholar via a systematic literature search. Twenty-seven studies published since 2014 with 120 895 participants were included in the meta-analysis.

RESULTS

PSU was moderately but robustly associated with both anxiety, r = 0.29 (95% CI: 0.23-0.35), and depression, r = 0.28 (95% CI: 0.22-0.34), P < 0.001 for both. Homogeneity tests showed significant P-values for anxiety and depression, but without affecting the results. Neither the age of the participants, publication year nor the study quality could explain the heterogeneity. Furthermore, we found no evidence for publication bias, since Egger's regression test showed no significance for depression (P = 0.21) and anxiety (P = 0.35).

CONCLUSIONS

Our study shows that PSU can be viewed as an indicator of symptoms of anxiety and depression and a possible manifestation of these mental health problems in modern society. Furthermore, PSU as a maladaptive coping behavior may contribute by worsening these symptoms. PSU screening should thus become part of standard clinical psychological diagnostic procedures.

Association of Habitual Checking Behaviors on Social Media With Longitudinal Functional Brain Development

Importance

Social media platforms provide adolescents with unprecedented opportunities for social interactions during a critical developmental period when the brain is especially sensitive to social feedback.

Objective

To explore how adolescents' frequency of checking behaviors on social media platforms is associated with longitudinal changes in functional brain development across adolescence.

Design, Setting, and Participants

A 3-year longitudinal cohort study of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) among sixth- and seventh-grade students recruited from 3 public middle schools in rural North Carolina.

Exposures

At wave 1, participants reported the frequency at which they checked Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Main Outcome or Measure

Neural responses to the Social Incentive Delay task when anticipating receiving social feedback, measured annually using fMRI for 3 years. Participants saw a cue that indicated whether the social feedback (adolescent faces with emotional expressions) would be a reward, punishment, or neutral; after a delay, a target appeared and students responded by pressing a button as quickly as possible; a display of social feedback depended on trial type and reaction time.

Results

Of 178 participants recruited at age 12 years, 169 participants (mean [SD] age, 12.89 [0.58] years; range, 11.93-14.52 years; 91 [53.8%] female; 38 [22.5%] Black, 60 [35.5%] Latinx, 50 [29.6%] White, 15 [8.9%] multiracial) met the inclusion criteria. Participants with habitual social media checking behaviors showed lower neural sensitivity to social anticipation at age 12 years compared with those with nonhabitual checking behaviors in the left amygdala, posterior insula (PI), and ventral striatum (VS; β, -0.22; 95% CI, -0.33 to -0.11), right amygdala (β, -0.19; 95% CI, -0.30 to -0.08), right anterior insula (AI; β, -0.23; 95% CI, -0.37 to -0.09), and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC; β, -0.29; 95% CI, -0.44 to -0.14). Among those with habitual checking behaviors, there were longitudinal increases in the left amygdala/PI/VS (β, 0.11; 95% CI, 0.04 to 0.18), right amygdala (β, 0.09; 95% CI, 0.02 to 0.16), right AI (β, 0.15; 95% CI, 0.02 to 0.20), and left DLPFC (β, 0.19; 95% CI, 0.05 to 0.25) during social anticipation, whereas among those with nonhabitual checking behaviors, longitudinal decreases were seen in the left amygdala/PI/VS (β, -0.12; 95% CI, -0.19 to -0.06), right amygdala (β, -0.10; 95% CI, -0.17 to -0.03), right AI (β, -0.13; 95% CI, -0.22 to -0.04), and left DLPFC (β, -0.10, 95% CI, -0.22 to -0.03).

Conclusions and Relevance

The results of this cohort study suggest that social media checking behaviors in early adolescence may be associated with changes in the brain's sensitivity to social rewards and punishments. Further research examining long-term associations between social media use, adolescent neural development, and psychological adjustment is needed to understand the effects of a ubiquitous influence on development for today's adolescents.

An exploratory analysis of the relationship of problematic Facebook use with loneliness and self-esteem: the mediating roles of extraversion and self-presentation

Studies indicate that loneliness and self-esteem are predictive factors of problematic social media use. Further, it is proposed that self-presentation and extraversion may explain individual differences in online activity and problematic social media use. The present study confirms the relationship of loneliness and self-esteem with problematic Facebook use and investigates the hypothesis that these psychological factors may be linked to problematic Facebook use through their association with self-presentation and extraversion. The sample of university students consisted of 477 Facebook users, 64% females, aged 18-64. Social media usage intensity was assessed by collecting passive data on the total time spent and the number of sessions on Facebook per day for the last 6 months. The psychological factors, personality, motives and problematic Facebook use were assessed via self-report measures. Results showed that the relationship of loneliness and self-esteem with problematic Facebook use was significantly positive and negative respectively. The relationship between self-esteem and problematic Facebook use was found to be inconsistently mediated by both self-presentation and extraversion, while loneliness was partially mediated by self-presentation only. The total effect of loneliness and self-esteem remained positive and negative respectively, although extraversion and self-presentation had a suppressing effect on the relationship between self-esteem and problematic Facebook use. Further, the prevalence of 'at-risk' Facebook users was found to be 6.0%. It was also determined that the usage intensity of 'at-risk' users was significantly different from other Facebook users. These results highlight the existence of different patterns of associations linking psychological factors, usage intensity and problematic Facebook use.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-03505-0.

The Associations between Daytime Physical Activity, While-in-Bed Smartphone Use, Sleep Delay, and Sleep Quality: A 24-h Investigation among Chinese College Students

Bedtime smartphone use is an emerging issue that threatens the sleep health of children and young adults. Physical activity can have numerous health benefits, including reducing problematic or addictive behavior. However, the role of daily physical activity in reducing bedtime smartphone use is understudied. Hence, we conducted a one-day cross-sectional on the weekend (21-22 May 2021) to investigate the associations between daytime physical activity, bedtime smartphone use, and sleep quality. A total of 828 college students were recruited in two colleges. Their daytime physical activity indices were captured, including self-reported physical activity duration, intensity, volume, and smartphone-monitored walking steps. The participants reported whether they used smartphone while lying in bed (before sleep) and whether they delayed sleep due to smartphone use. Their while-in-bed screen time (duration) and subsequent sleep quality were also measured with self-report and a numeric rating scale, respectively. The results suggested that daytime physical activity duration was associated with lower chances of while-in-bed smartphone use (OR = 0.907, p = 0.019) and smartphone-related sleep delay (OR = 0.932, p = 0.014). However, no significant association was found between physical activity indices and while-in-bed screen time or sleep quality. These findings may contribute to understanding the reciprocal relationship between physical activity and smartphone use and highlighting the potential of controlling problematic bedtime smartphone use through daily physical activity. Future research is warranted to examine the associations with extra objective measures.

A Nudge-Based Intervention to Reduce Problematic Smartphone Use: Randomised Controlled Trial

Problematic smartphone use is rising across the world. We tested an intervention with ten strategies that nudge users to reduce their smartphone use, for example by disabling non-essential notifications and changing their display to greyscale. Participants first completed baseline measures of smartphone use, well-being, and cognition before choosing which intervention strategies to follow for 2 to 6 weeks. Study 1 ( N = 51 ) used a pre-post design while study 2 ( N = 70 ) compared the intervention to a control group who monitored their screen time. Study 1 found reductions in problematic smartphone use, screen time, and depressive symptoms after 2 weeks. Study 2 found that the intervention reduced problematic smartphone use, lowered screen time, and improved sleep quality compared to the control group. Our brief intervention returned problematic smartphone use scores to normal levels for at least 6 weeks. These results demonstrate that various strategies can be combined while maintaining feasibility and efficacy.

Exploring the Emotional Experience During Instant Messaging Among Young Adults: An Experimental Study Incorporating Physiological Correlates of Arousal

Instant messaging (IM) is a highly diffused form of communication among younger populations, yet little is known about the emotional experience during IM. The present study aimed to investigate the emotional experience during IM by drawing on the Circumplex Model of Affect and measuring heart rate and electrodermal activity as indicators of arousal in addition to self-reported perceived emotional valence. Using an experimental design, we manipulated message latency (i.e., response after 1 min versus 7 min) and message valence (positive versus negative response). Based on data collected from 65 young adults (50% male; M_age = 23.28, SD = 3.75), we observed arousal as participants’ electrodermal activity levels increased from the time a fictitious peer started typing a response to the receipt of that response, especially in the delayed condition. Electrodermal activity levels also increased in both the positive and the negative message conditions. No changes were observed for heart rate. Participants’ self-report perceived emotional valence revealed that positive messages were evaluated as more pleasant and the peer as more available, while no difference in the self-report was found for message latency. These findings shed light on the emotional experience during IM by adding valuable insights on the physiological processes underlying the anticipation of social reward, but only during delayed IM exchange that can be observed in Human–Computer-Interaction.

Integrating Evolutionary, Cultural, and Computational Psychiatry: A Multilevel Systemic Approach

This paper proposes an integrative perspective on evolutionary, cultural and computational approaches to psychiatry. These three approaches attempt to frame mental disorders as multiscale entities and offer modes of explanations and modeling strategies that can inform clinical practice. Although each of these perspectives involves systemic thinking, each is limited in its ability to address the complex developmental trajectories and larger social systemic interactions that lead to mental disorders. Inspired by computational modeling in theoretical biology, this paper aims to integrate the modes of explanation offered by evolutionary, cultural and computational psychiatry in a multilevel systemic perspective. We apply the resulting Evolutionary, Cultural and Computational (ECC) model to Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) to illustrate how this integrative approach can guide research and practice in psychiatry.

Impulsivity and Depressive Brooding in Internet Addiction: A Study With a Sample of Italian Adolescents During COVID-19 Lockdown

This contribution presents a study conducted on a sample of Italian adolescents (n = 411) in the period of the first COVID-19 lockdown. The study investigated the role and predictive weight of the impulsivity and depressive brooding variables on Internet addiction, using a hierarchical regression analysis. The participants were administered the Uso-Abuso e Dipendenza da Internet [Internet Use-Abuse and Addiction] (UADI-2), the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 (BIS-11), and the Ruminative Response Scale (RRS). In terms of percentage distribution, 28% of the participants were in the full dependency range, while 34.7% demonstrated Internet abuse behavior. The results highlighted not only the predictive value of impulsiveness (β = 0.323) and ruminative thinking (β = 0.258), but also the role of gender (β = -0.205) on Internet addiction. Thus, male participants showed higher levels of Internet addiction, with higher scores on impulsiveness and brooding way of thinking. The study shows that the issue in question is significantly present among adolescents; in addition, not only targeted awareness programmes but also psycho-educational and clinical interventions to promote greater emotional and cognitive control would be necessary as a preventive and mitigating measure. Psychological interventions can help increase self-awareness, develop emotional regulation and impulse control, and correct maladaptive cognitions which in adolescents are mostly driven by a ruminative cognitive style.

Unification by Fiat: Arrested Development of Predictive Processing

Predictive processing (PP) has been repeatedly presented as a unificatory account of perception, action, and cognition. In this paper, we argue that this is premature: As a unifying theory, PP fails to deliver general, simple, homogeneous, and systematic explanations. By examining its current trajectory of development, we conclude that PP remains only loosely connected both to its computational framework and to its hypothetical biological underpinnings, which makes its fundamentals unclear. Instead of offering explanations that refer to the same set of principles, we observe systematic equivocations in PP‐based models, or outright contradictions with its avowed principles. To make matters worse, PP‐based models are seldom empirically validated, and they are frequently offered as mere just‐so stories. The large number of PP‐based models is thus not evidence of theoretical progress in unifying perception, action, and cognition. On the contrary, we maintain that the gap between theory and its biological and computational bases contributes to the arrested development of PP as a unificatory theory. Thus, we urge the defenders of PP to focus on its critical problems instead of offering mere re‐descriptions of known phenomena, and to validate their models against possible alternative explanations that stem from different theoretical assumptions. Otherwise, PP will ultimately fail as a unified theory of cognition.

Validity and Psychometric Properties of the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale in Three Large Independent Samples of Children and Adolescents

Background: Problematic gaming has become a major health issue in children and adolescents resulting in the need for targeted valid and reliable screening instruments. This study aimed to explore the psychometric properties and criterion validity of the widely used 9-item Internet Gaming Disorder Scale (IGDS) in young gamers. Methods: Three independent samples were drawn from socio-demographically representative cross-sectional telephone surveys collected in the years 2016 (N = 762), 2017 (N = 777), and 2018 (N = 784) and analyzed separately. Results: The IGDS revealed psychometric properties suitable for screening in large samples. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.563, 0.724, and 0.778. The unidimensionality assumption was challenged. At-risk and pathological gamers compared to normal gamers reported longer digital media use and more emotional symptoms and hyperactivity/inattention with clinical relevance to medium effect sizes. The comparison of at-risk and pathological gamers indicated a partial distinction between the two problematic gaming groups. Conclusions: The IGDS could be shown to be an overall suitable and valid tool to identify pathological gamers in childhood and adolescence according to the DSM-5 criteria on a population level. However, the polythetic structure limits comparability with the recent ICD-11 criteria. At-risk gamers appeared as a heterogeneous group warranting more research.

Hypnotised by Your Phone? Smartphone Addiction Correlates With Hypnotisability

Hypnosis and heavy smartphone use are both characterised by absorbed states in which one loses track of time and responds automatically to stimuli. In this pre-registered study, we tested whether there was a relationship between smartphone addiction and hypnotisability: one's tendency to follow suggestions under hypnosis. Over 11 public lectures, we hypnotised 641 student-aged participants; after the hypnosis session, participants completed the Smartphone Addiction Scale (Short Version). There was a positive correlation between hypnotisability and smartphone addiction (r = .17, 95% CI [.09, .24], p < .001) with a magnitude similar to standard predictors of hypnotisability. This correlation was small but unlikely spurious: it was positive in 10 of the 11 samples (including two from psychology courses) and persisted in a follow-up several months later. The addiction scores in this Canadian sample were unexpectedly high (M = 31.41) compared to other countries. We hypothesise that targeting the absorbed, time-distorted, and automatic use of smartphones may promote healthier phone habits.

TTOM in action: Refining the variational approach to cognition and culture

The target article "Thinking Through Other Minds" (TTOM) offered an account of the distinctively human capacity to acquire cultural knowledge, norms, and practices. To this end, we leveraged recent ideas from theoretical neurobiology to understand the human mind in social and cultural contexts. Our aim was both synthetic - building an integrative model adequate to account for key features of cultural learning and adaptation; and prescriptive - showing how the tools developed to explain brain dynamics can be applied to the emergence of social and cultural ecologies of mind. In this reply to commentators, we address key issues, including: (1) refining the concept of culture to show how TTOM and the free-energy principle (FEP) can capture essential elements of human adaptation and functioning; (2) addressing cognition as an embodied, enactive, affective process involving cultural affordances; (3) clarifying the significance of the FEP formalism related to entropy minimization, Bayesian inference, Markov blankets, and enactivist views; (4) developing empirical tests and applications of the TTOM model; (5) incorporating cultural diversity and context at the level of intra-cultural variation, individual differences, and the transition to digital niches; and (6) considering some implications for psychiatry. The commentators' critiques and suggestions point to useful refinements and applications of the model. In ongoing collaborations, we are exploring how to augment the theory with affective valence, take into account individual differences and historicity, and apply the model to specific domains including epistemic bias.

Predictors of problematic smartphone use among university students

Predictors of problematic smartphone use have been found mainly in studies on elementary and high school students. Few studies have focused on predictors related to social network and messaging apps or smartphone model. Thus, the objective of our study was to identify predictors of problematic smartphone use related to demographic characteristics, loneliness, social app use, and smartphone model among university students. This cross-sectional study involved 257 Brazilian university students who answered a smartphone addiction scale, a questionnaire about smartphone usage patterns, and the Brazilian version of the UCLA-R loneliness scale. Women, iPhone owners, and users of Instagram and Snapchat had significantly higher smartphone addiction scores. We found correlations between scores for the Brazilian version of smartphone addiction scale and the importance attributed to WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, and the Brazilian version of the UCLA-R loneliness scale. Our hierarchical regression model predicted 32.2% of the scores of the Brazilian version of the smartphone addiction scale, with the greatest increase in predictive capability by the step that added smartphone social app importance, followed by the step that added loneliness. Adding the smartphone model produced the smallest increase in predictive capability. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Assessing ICD-11 Gaming Disorder in Adolescent Gamers: Development and Validation of the Gaming Disorder Scale for Adolescents (GADIS-A)

BACKGROUND

Adolescents affected by Gaming Disorder (GD) show substantial impairments in daily functioning. GD was included in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as a new diagnosis coming into effect in January 2022. An instrument to screen for GD in adolescents has not yet been published and is urgently needed for scientific research and clinical practice.

METHODS

In the present study, the ICD-11-based Gaming Disorder Scale for Adolescents (GADIS-A) was developed by clinical experts and scientists. It was validated with 819 frequent gamers of 10 to 17 years and a respective caregiver in an online survey. Criterion validity was examined by assessing gaming behavior, emotional dysregulation, and academic performance. Item structure was investigated by factorial analyses. ROC- and Latent Profile Analyses were computed for differentiation between GD and Non-GD.

RESULTS

In line with the ICD-11 approach and accounting for cognitive-behavioral symptoms and negative consequences equally, GADIS-A items were best described by two factors. The new instrument showed excellent internal consistency, good criterion validity, and excellent discriminatory power.

CONCLUSIONS

GADIS-A is the first successfully validated questionnaire to assess ICD-11 GD in adolescents. Thus, it can significantly contribute to reliably identify affected adolescents in clinical and research settings.

Tell Me a Story: Socio-Emotional Functioning, Well-Being and Problematic Smartphone Use in Adolescents With Specific Learning Disabilities

Although Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) are described as specific difficulties in one or more academic areas, often socio-emotional problems are also reported to be related to well-being and school engagement. Moreover, recent evidence shows that emotional problems and reduced social support predict problematic use of new technologies, such as a smartphone, that can, in turn, increase these problems. In this study, we aimed to investigate socio-emotional functioning and its relation to well-being, school engagement, and problematic smartphone use. Social and emotional skills of 19 adolescents with a diagnosis of SLD and 19 control adolescents were assessed through a narrative test; adolescents were requested to narrate complete stories elicited by pictures representing social situations. Information on well-being and problematic smartphone use were collected through questionnaires. The comparison between groups showed differences in cognitive-social skills, although no significant differences in emotional functioning were found. Additionally, the perception of the social environment as supportive and trustworthy was related to general well-being for both groups, whereas the perception of limits and rules set by the adult world appeared to be related to a decreased investment in learning processes only for the SLD students. Finally, correlation analysis showed that smartphone use was associated with reduced perception of social support and to a decreased ability to understand and solve social situations. These results assert the critical role played by social information processing and social support in terms of well-being in adolescence, and contribute to enhancing knowledge of the mechanisms underlying problematic smartphone use in a clinical sample.

Digital media: Promoting healthy screen use in school-aged children and adolescents

Digital media are integrated into the everyday lives of children and adolescents, with potential benefits and risks for learning, mental and physical health, and for social life. This statement examines the cognitive, psychosocial, and physical effects of digital media on school-aged children and adolescents, with a focus on family routines, context, and activities. Evidence-based guidance for clinicians and families involves four principles: healthy management, meaningful screen use, positive modelling, and balanced, informed monitoring of screen time and behaviours.

Les médias numériques : la promotion d'une saine utilisation des écrans chez les enfants d'âge scolaire et les adolescents

Les médias numériques font partie du quotidien des enfants et des adolescents. Ils comportent des bienfaits potentiels et des risques pour leur apprentissage, leur santé mentale et physique et leur vie sociale. Le présent document de principes aborde les effets cognitifs, psychosociaux et physiques de ces médias sur les enfants d'âge scolaire et les adolescents, notamment sur les habitudes, le contexte et les activités de la famille. Les conseils fondés sur des données probantes destinés aux cliniciens et aux familles reposent sur quatre principes : une gestion saine, une utilisation constructive, un exemple positif et une surveillance équilibrée et éclairée du temps d'écran et des comportements s'y rapportant.

Verbal Abuse Related to Self-Esteem Damage and Unjust Blame Harms Mental Health and Social Interaction in College Population

Verbal abuse is an emotional abuse intended to inflict intense humiliation-denigration-fear as perceived by exposed person. Network-based approaches have been applied to explore the integrative-segregated patterns of associations among the psychological features and external stimuli for diverse populations; few studies reported for verbal abuse effects in college population. Self-reporting measurements acquired form 5,616 college students were used for network analyses. Escalating cascades of verbal abuse from differential sources (parents, peers, or supervisors; network 1) and directed associations among verbal abuse severity-psychopathology-social interaction (network 2) were estimated using the directed acyclic graphs. Principal connectors of verbal abuse–psychopathology–social interaction were shown using the graph theory metrics calculated from the intra-individual covariance networks (network 3). Directed propagating patterns of verbal abuse phenomena differed by source (network 1). Severe peer-related verbal abuse affected psychomotor changes and influenced irritability (network 2). Verbal abuse of self-esteem damage and unjust blame served as connectors in the verbal abuse-psychopathology-social interaction; influence of smartphone overuse-related distress was stronger in cases with more severe verbal abuse (network 3). Verbal abuse that damages self-esteem and conveys unjust blame harms mental health and social interaction for college population.

Regimes of Expectations: An Active Inference Model of Social Conformity and Human Decision Making

How do humans come to acquire shared expectations about how they ought to behave in distinct normalized social settings? This paper offers a normative framework to answer this question. We introduce the computational construct of 'deontic value' - based on active inference and Markov decision processes - to formalize conceptions of social conformity and human decision-making. Deontic value is an attribute of choices, behaviors, or action sequences that inherit directly from deontic cues in our econiche (e.g., red traffic lights); namely, cues that denote an obligatory social rule. Crucially, the prosocial aspect of deontic value rests upon a particular form of circular causality: deontic cues exist in the environment in virtue of the environment being modified by repeated actions, while action itself is contingent upon the deontic value of environmental cues. We argue that this construction of deontic cues enables the epistemic (i.e., information-seeking) and pragmatic (i.e., goal- seeking) values of any behavior to be 'cached' or 'outsourced' to the environment, where the environment effectively 'learns' about the behavior of its denizens. We describe the process whereby this particular aspect of value enables learning of habitual behavior over neurodevelopmental and transgenerational timescales.

Technology and College Student Mental Health: Challenges and Opportunities

In recent years, there has been an increase in symptoms of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and other mental illnesses in college student populations. Simultaneously, there has been a steady rise in the demand for counseling services. These trends have been viewed by some as a mental health crisis requiring prompt investigation and the generation of potential solutions to serve the needs of students. Subsequently, several studies linked the observed rise in symptoms with the ubiquitous rise in use of personal computing technologies, including social media, and have suggested that time spent on these types of technologies is directly correlated with poor mental health. While use of personal computing technologies has dramatically shifted the landscape in which college students connect with one another and appears to have some detriments to mental health, the same technologies also offer a number of opportunities for the enhancement of mental health and the treatment of mental illness. Here, we describe the challenges and opportunities for college student mental health afforded by personal computing technologies. We highlight opportunities for new research in this area and possibilities for individuals and organizations to engage with these technologies in a more helpful and wellness-promoting manner.

The Dark Side of Information Proliferation

There are well-understood psychological limits on our capacity to process information. As information proliferation-the consumption and sharing of information-increases through social media and other communications technology, these limits create an attentional bottleneck, favoring information that is more likely to be searched for, attended to, comprehended, encoded, and later reproduced. In information-rich environments, this bottleneck influences the evolution of information via four forces of cognitive selection, selecting for information that is belief-consistent, negative, social, and predictive. Selection for belief-consistent information leads balanced information to support increasingly polarized views. Selection for negative information amplifies information about downside risks and crowds out potential benefits. Selection for social information drives herding, impairs objective assessments, and reduces exploration for solutions to hard problems. Selection for predictive patterns drives overfitting, the replication crisis, and risk seeking. This article summarizes the negative implications of these forces of cognitive selection and presents eight warnings that represent severe pitfalls for the naive "informavore," accelerating extremism, hysteria, herding, and the proliferation of misinformation.