Exploring adolescent social media and internet gaming addiction: The role of emotion regulation

Abstract

Behavioral addictions such as social media addiction and internet gaming disorder are prevalent among adolescent populations. Although studies have investigated predictors of these addictive behaviors with international samples of adolescents, less is known about American adolescents. In this study, we investigated the predictive nature of emotion regulation after controlling for age, gender, and race with regard to social media addiction and internet gaming disorder severity. Results indicate that gender and emotion regulation significantly predicted both forms of behavioral addictions with small to moderate effects. Specifically, female gender and lower emotion regulation significantly predicted social media addiction and male gender and lower emotion regulation significantly predicted internet gaming disorder severity. Implications for mental health professionals are discussed.

Emotion dysregulation and psychopathological symptoms in non-clinical adolescents: The mediating role of boredom and social media use

“…Concerning the latter aspect, existing literature generally agrees on the fact that social media often serve as a means of emotion regulation in adolescence [ 18 ]. Specifically, following Goodman [ 39 ]’s theory, addictive behaviors can induce (temporary) pleasant emotions (i.e., positive reinforcement) while simultaneously alleviating distress (i.e., negative reinforcement); this mechanism seems to be also applicable to problematic social media use, which represents a potential addictive behavior [ 37 , 85 ]. Therefore, adolescents who struggle to find an adaptive way to deal with emotional distress may turn to social media as a strategy to cope with and regulate their emotions.…”

“… High emotion regulation difficulties were directly related to high levels of internalizing and externalizing problems [ 45 , 54 ], as well as to high levels of boredom [ 11 , 81 ] and problematic social media use [ 37 , 80 , 87 ]; High levels of boredom and problematic social media use predicted high levels of internalizing and externalizing problems [ 33 , 49 , 69 , 84 ]. …”

“…High emotion regulation difficulties were directly related to high levels of internalizing and externalizing problems [ 45 , 54 ], as well as to high levels of boredom [ 11 , 81 ] and problematic social media use [ 37 , 80 , 87 ];…”

“…Griffiths and colleagues [ 42 ] distinguished between generalized problematic Internet use and specific online activities such as gaming and shopping. Problematic Internet use refers to the individual’s engagement in online compulsive behaviors that, among adolescents, mainly involve social media use [ 37 , 77 , 85 ]. Specifically, problematic social media use has been defined as “being overly concerned about social media, driven by an uncontrollable motivation to log on to or use social media, and devoting so much time and effort to social media that it impairs other important life areas” ([ 8 ], p. 4054).…”

“…For example, research has linked problematic social media use to difficulties in impulse control and goal-oriented behavior (both facets of emotion dysregulation) in young people [ 80 ]. Emotion regulation deficits have also been considered as precursors to technology-related behavioral addictions (including problematic social media use) in adolescence [ 37 ]; more specifically, according to Gioia et al [ 36 ], problematic Internet use might function as a coping strategy to compensate for emotion regulation deficits. Moreover, it has been hypothesized that social media use can serve as a means of emotion regulation, having the function of overregulating positive affect and/or underregulating negative affect [ 18 ].…”