Problematic Social Media Use in Adolescents and Young Adults: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Technology is ever evolving, with more and more diverse activities becoming possible on screen-based devices. However, participating in a heavy screen-based lifestyle may come at a cost. Our hypothesis was that problematic social media use increased the prevalence of mental health outcomes. OBJECTIVE: This study seeks to systematically examine problematic social media use in youth and its association with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. METHODS: A systematic search was conducted to identify studies in adolescents and young adults, using the databases Engineering Village, Psycinfo, Pubmed, and Web of Science. A total of 18 studies were identified, with a total of 9269 participants in our review and included in the meta-analysis. RESULTS: Our metaregression shows moderate but statistically significant correlations between problematic social media use and depression (r=0.273, P<.001), anxiety (r=0.348, P<.001), and stress (r=0.313, P<.001). We did not find evidence of heterogeneity of these summary correlations by age, gender, or year of publication. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides further evidence of the association between problematic social media use and negative mental health among adolescents and young adults and supports future research to focus on the underlying mechanisms of problematic use of social media. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42021222309; https://tinyurl.com/2p9y4bjx.