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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Addictive Disorders
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1386845

Network modeling of problematic social media use components in college student social media users

Provisionally accepted
Jianyong Chen Jianyong Chen *Ting Su Ting Su Junqiang Dong Junqiang Dong *Yuzhi Li Yuzhi Li *Ju Feng Ju Feng *Yingxiu Chen Yingxiu Chen *Gu Liu Gu Liu *
  • Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: While the constitutive features of problematic social media use (PSMU) have been formulated, there has been a lack of studies in the field examining the structure of relationships among PSMU components. Method: This study employed network analytic methods to investigate the connectivity among PSMU components in a large sample of 1,136 college student social media users (Mage = 19.69, SD = 1.60). Components of PSMU were assessed by the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS) derived from a components model of addiction. We computed two types of network models, Gaussian graphical models (GGMs) to examine network structure and influential nodes and directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) to identify the probabilistic dependencies among components. Result: Relapse component consistently emerged as a central node in the GGMs and as a parent node of other components in the DAGs. Relapse and tolerance components exhibited strong mutual connections and were linked to the most vital edges within the networks. Additionally, conflict and mood modification nodes occupied more central positions within the PSMU network for the low-BSMAS-score subgroup compared with the high-BSMAS-score subgroup. Conclusion: Our findings shed new light on the complex architecture of PSMU and its potential implications for tailored interventions to relieve PSMU.

    Keywords: Problematic social media use, Network analysis, Gaussian graphical model, Directed acyclic graph, components model of addiction

    Received: 16 Feb 2024; Accepted: 21 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Chen, Su, Dong, Li, Feng, Chen and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Jianyong Chen, Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321004, Zhejiang Province, China
    Junqiang Dong, Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321004, Zhejiang Province, China
    Yuzhi Li, Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321004, Zhejiang Province, China
    Ju Feng, Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321004, Zhejiang Province, China
    Yingxiu Chen, Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321004, Zhejiang Province, China
    Gu Liu, Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321004, Zhejiang Province, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.