About this Research Topic

Background

The latter half of the 20th century saw increased access to the internet and digital technologies, such as personal computers and smartphones. For example, as of July 2021, social media could boast approximately 4.5 billion active users. These rapid technological developments have led to widespread social change, with far-reaching transformations still unfolding. However, the full implications of these changes for mental health and psychological wellbeing remain poorly understood.

Psychological disorders tend to be pathoplastic in that their content, course, and prevalence are profoundly shaped by social change. How are contemporary and emerging digital technologies influencing mental health problems? What are the impacts on, for example, illness-anxiety, psychoses, mood disorders, and eating psychopathology? Understanding how digital technologies can affect mental health problems will undoubtedly help improve treatment and prevention. It might even call into question the safety of specific digital technologies.

Beyond pathoplasticity, digital technologies, in and of themselves, can give rise to problematic usage patterns or behavioral addictions. For example, social media and online/digital gaming, two of the most widely adopted digital technologies, have raised public mental health concerns related to addictive/problematic use. Understanding the risk factors, cognitive vulnerabilities, and mechanisms underpinning such problematic usage patterns will help develop effective prevention and intervention strategies.

To better understand the impact of digital technologies on mental health, we need to look at both existing and emerging problems. This Research Topic will focus on cutting-edge research into how well-established psychological disorders are impacted by digital technologies such as social media and gaming. The Research Topic will also explore the latest research into problematic social media use (PSMU) and gaming disorder.

More specifically, the goal of this Research Topic is to present cutting-edge cyber psychopathology research and discuss the potential translation of these studies into clinical practice and public health policy. We will explore the pathoplastic influences of digital technologies (e.g., social media, gaming, virtual reality) on existing mental health problems, highlighting lessons learned by clinicians and policymakers. We will also focus on PSMU and gaming disorder, emphasizing research exploring the potential biopsychosocial mechanisms underpinning the development of problematic use. We anticipate that this Research Topic will be broadly informative to clinicians, physician-scientists, and basic scientists interested in understanding cyber-psychopathology and digital behavioral addictions.

The Research Topic aims to unfold a range of mental and physical wellbeing issues elucidating the impact of common digital technologies, such as social media and online games, on health as well as explore potential therapeutic and treatment options. We welcome Original Research articles, Case Reports of clinical cohorts, and Review articles addressing the above aims.

We expressly encourage submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following topics
• Problematic social media use, risk factors, and mechanisms
• Gaming disorder, risk factors, and mechanisms
• Cyber-psychopathology and culture
• The internet, the metaverse body image, and eating disorders
• Social media and mood disorder: mechanisms
• PTSD and traumatic online content
• Cyberchondria: illness anxiety and the internet
• The internet, the metaverse, virtual/augmented reality, and psychosis
• Psychotherapeutic gaming
• Psychotherapeutic social media use
• The metaverse and mental health

Keywords: Social Media, Gaming, Internet, Metaverse, Mental Health

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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