While the rapid growth of mobile mental health applications has offered an avenue of support unbridled by physical distance, time, and cost, the digitalization of traditional interventions has also triggered doubts surrounding their effectiveness and safety. Given the need for a more comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of mobile mental health apps in traditional treatment, this umbrella review provides a holistic summary of their key potential and pitfalls. A total of 36 reviews published between 2014 and 2022—including systematic reviews, meta-analyses, scoping reviews, and literature reviews—were identified from the Cochrane library, Medline (via PubMed Central), and Scopus databases. The majority of results supported the key potential of apps in helping to (1) provide timely support, (2) ease the costs of mental healthcare, (3) combat stigma in help-seeking, and (4) enhance therapeutic outcomes. Our results also identified common themes of apps’ pitfalls (i.e., challenges faced by app users), including (1) user engagement issues, (2) safety issues in emergencies, (3) privacy and confidentiality breaches, and (4) the utilization of non-evidence-based approaches. We synthesize the potential and pitfalls of mental health apps provided by the reviews and outline critical avenues for future research.

The increasing prevalence of cyberbullying victimization has become a commonplace issue globally. Although research has explored various predictors and consequences of cyberbullying victimization, most focus on a narrow range of variables or contexts, highlighting the need to comprehensively review and synthesize the wealth of empirical findings. We conducted a systematic review of meta-analyses on cyberbullying victimization, incorporating 56 meta-analyses and 296 effect sizes (sample size range 421–1,136,080, sample size median 53,183; searched via EBSCOhost ERIC, EBSCOhost PsycInfo, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, 13 cyberbullying-related journals, Google Scholar and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses) to address the following critical questions: (1) What are the crucial sociodemographic and psychological profiles of cyberbullying victims? (2) What critical contextual and environmental factors are associated with cyberbullying victimization? (3) What are the key psychological and behavioural consequences of cyberbullying victimization? (4) How effective are existing interventions in mitigating impacts of cyberbullying? Included meta-analyses had to focus on cyberbullying victimization and report at least one predictor or consequence. A quality assessment was conducted using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Instrument for Systematic Reviews and Research Syntheses. Findings suggest that females, school-aged populations, traditional bullying victims and frequent internet users were more likely to be cyberbullied. Unregulated school environments and unsupportive parental relationships were also associated with increased cyberbullying victimization. Cyberbullying victimization was consistently associated with negative psychological outcomes, lower school performance and maladaptive coping behaviours. More importantly, the current review found that cyberbullying intervention programmes show promising results. The current review underscores the importance of devoting adequate resources to mitigating cyberbullying victimization.

Does Social Media Use Increase Depressive Symptoms? A Reverse Causation Perspective

Despite a growing number of studies on bilingual advantages in executive functions (EF), their findings have been inconsistent. To shed light on this issue, we aimed to address both the conceptual and methodological limitations that have prevailed in the literature: failure to consider diverse bilingual experiences when assessing bilingual advantages or to address the task impurity problems that can arise with EF tasks. Drawing on the adaptive control hypothesis and control process model of code-switching, we adopted theory-driven and latent variable approaches to examine the relations between bilingual interactional contexts and EF. By administering 9 EF tasks to 175 bilingual participants over multiple sessions, we found that bilinguals' dual-language context significantly predicted the latent variable of task-switching, while a dense code-switching context significantly predicted 2 latent variables of inhibitory control and goal maintenance. These findings remained robust after controlling for potential confounds of demographics, socioeconomic status, nonverbal intelligence, and unintended language-switching tendency. Our study suggests that bilingual interactional context is a key language experience that modulates bilingual advantages in EF. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).