ArticleJournal of public health (Oxford, England)2026
How do social media use, gaming frequency, and internalizing symptoms predict each other over time in early-to-middle adolescence?
Article in Journal of public health (Oxford, England), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Beyond Screen Time and Emotion Regulation: Social Trust as a Structural Pathway to Perceived Well-Being-A Competing-Models Analysis Among Chinese Youth.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Adolescent social media use and its association with mental health: a cross-sectional study in Bradford, England.BMC public health · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe effects of adolescent digital technology use (e.g. social media, gaming) on their mental health are a major public health concern, but existing evidence is of mixed quality and findings have been inconclusive.
methodsSeparating within-person effects from between-person effects, a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model was applied to three annual waves of data (T1, T2, T3) on social media use, gaming, and internalizing symptoms among N = 25 629 adolescents (51% girls, average age 12 years, 7 months (SD = 3.58 months) at baseline) in Greater Manchester, England.
resultsLongitudinal relationships varied by gender, such that more frequent gaming at T2 predicted less time spent on social media use at T3 in girls (but not boys), and more frequent internalizing symptoms at T2 predicted reductions in gaming frequency at T3 in boys (but not girls). There was no evidence that time spent on social media or gaming frequency predicted later internalizing symptoms among girls or boys. Sensitivity analyses that distinguished active versus passive social media use replicated these findings.
conclusionsThe findings of this study do not support the widely held view that adolescent technology use is a major causal factor in their mental health difficulties.
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Registered trials
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