ArticleJournal of behavioral addictions2020
Associations between symptoms of problematic smartphone, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram use: An item-level exploratory graph analysis perspective.
Article in Journal of behavioral addictions, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed.
- Effects of a 14-day social media abstinence on mental health and well-being: results from an experimental study.BMC psychology · 2024Trial
- Objective screen time and smartphone addiction symptoms in defining risky smartphone use: A cross-sectional study of university students.Irish journal of medical science · 2026Article
- Exploring the Mediating Role of Emotion Regulation and Distress Intolerance in the Relationship Between Social Anxiety and Problematic Smartphone Use: A Cross-Sectional Study.Health science reports · 2026Article
- The Relationship Between Problematic Use of Social Networks, Perceived Stress, Distraction, and Self-Management in Nursing Students: A Cross-Sectional Study.Nursing reports (Pavia, Italy) · 2026Article
- Prolonged social media use is not fundamentally problematic in a Hungarian representative study.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- The Relationship Between TikTok Usage and Executive Function Is Mediated by Problematic Social Media Use.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- One-year update on physical activity and smartphone addiction in university students: A systematic review of novel research.Preventive medicine reports · 2025Review
- Psychological risk factors for problematic social network use: An overview of systematic reviews andAddictive behaviors reports · 2025Review
- Examining measurement discrepancies in adolescent screen media activity with insights from the ABCD study.Npj mental health research · 2025Article
- Do regular exercise, gender, and age influence smartphone addiction? Analyzing screen time and smartphone deprivation symptoms.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Could physical activity alleviate smartphone addiction in university students? A systematic literature review.Preventive medicine reports · 2024Review
- Depressive inclinations mediate the association between personality (neuroticism/conscientiousness) and TikTok Use Disorder tendencies.BMC psychology · 2024Article
- Social media use and everyday cognitive failure: investigating the fear of missing out and social networks use disorder relationship.BMC psychiatry · 2023Article
- Phubbing behavior, personality, and use of instagram by Brazilian adults: a correlational and predictive study.Psicologia, reflexao e critica : revista semestral do Departamento de Psicologia da UFRGS · 2023Article
- Time Spent on Mobile Apps Matters: A Latent Class Analysis of Patterns of Smartphone Use among Adolescents.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- The interplay between social media use and problematic internet usage: Four behavioral patterns.Heliyon · 2023Article
- Repetitive negative thinking mediates the relationship between addictive Facebook use and suicide-related outcomes: A longitudinal study.Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) · 2023Article
- Neuroimaging the effects of smartphone (over-)use on brain function and structure-a review on the current state of MRI-based findings and a roadmap for future research.Psychoradiology · 2023Review
- Unravelling the web of addictions: A network analysis approach.Addictive behaviors reports · 2022Article
- Exploring subtypes and correlates of internet gaming disorder severity among adolescents during COVID-19 in China: A latent class analysis.Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimsStudies have demonstrated associations between both problematic smartphone and social networks use with everyday life adversities. However, examination of associations between problematic smartphone use (PSU) and problematic use of specific social networking platforms, especially on item-level data, has received relatively little attention. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to explore how items of problematic smartphone, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram use are associated.
methods949 German-speaking adults participated in a web survey study. The participants were queried about their socio-demographics as well as levels of problematic smartphone, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram use. In addition to bivariate correlation analysis, exploratory graph analysis (EGA), a type of network analysis, was conducted.
resultsThe results showed that while problematic Facebook and Instagram use seem to be distinct phenomena, problematic smartphone and WhatsApp use were heavily intertwined. Furthermore, the only cross-platform symptom observed was the extent of reported pain in wrists and neck due to digital technology use. The EGA network models showed very good stability in bootstrap analyses. DISCUSSION AND
conclusionsIn general, the results of this study suggest that while Instagram and Facebook use may potentially constitute distinct problematic behaviors, problematic smartphone/WhatsApp use scales may be measuring highly similar or even the same construct.
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