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

As nonmedical cannabis is now legal in Canada, it is important to understand the complex relationship between perceptions of risk, problematic cannabis use and mental health among young adults. Objectives: To assess whether perceptions of risk associated with cannabis relates to cannabis use among young adults. Moreover, we explored whether current symptoms of anxiety were also related to problematic use, and the role of gender in this relationship. Methods: Self-report surveys were completed by 1043 Carleton University students. Students completed several questionnaires assessing perceptions of risk associated with cannabis use, and cannabis use and anxiety symptoms. Results: Males were significantly more likely to rate some of the harms associated with cannabis use as less risky, and reported higher rates of cannabis use. We also found that problematic cannabis use was positively related to anxiety symptoms, and this relationship was moderated by gender such that greater cannabis use related to higher anxiety scores more strongly among females. Conclusions: Our study yields valuable information regarding how Canadian youth perceive the risks associated with cannabis use; critically, males are more likely to perceive minimal risk with use and are also more likely to use problematically. By contrast, cannabis use is more strongly related to anxiety among females. These results have important implications for education and outreach campaigns associated with the legalization of cannabis and cannabis products in Canada. Comme le cannabis non médical est maintenant légal au Canada, il est important de comprendre la relation complexe entre les perceptions du risque, la consommation problématique de cannabis et la santé mentale des jeunes adultes. Objectifs: Évaluer si les perceptions de risque associé au cannabis sont liées à la consommation de cannabis chez les jeunes adultes. De plus, nous avons examiné si les symptômes d’anxiété actuels étaient également liés à une utilisation problématique et le rôle du genre dans cette relation. Méthodes: Des sondages d’auto-évaluation ont été effectués par 1 043 étudiants de l’Université de Carleton. Les élèves ont rempli plusieurs questionnaires évaluant les perceptions du risque associé à la consommation de cannabis, à la consommation de cannabis et aux symptômes d’anxiété. Résultats: Les hommes étaient beaucoup plus susceptibles de juger certains risques liés à la consommation de cannabis comme moins dangereux et ont signalé des taux de consommation de cannabis plus élevés. Nous avons également constaté que la consommation problématique de cannabis était positivement liée aux symptômes d’anxiété, cette relation étant modérée en fonction du sexe, de sorte qu’une plus grande consommation de cannabis était associée à des scores d’anxiété plus élevés chez les femmes. Conclusions: Notre étude fournit des informations précieuses sur la manière dont les jeunes Canadiens perçoivent les risques associés à la consommation de cannabis. De manière critique, les hommes sont plus susceptibles de percevoir un risque minimal avec l’utilisation et sont également plus susceptibles de l’utiliser de manière problématique. En revanche, la consommation de cannabis est davantage liée à l’anxiété chez les femmes. Ces résultats ont des implications importantes pour les campagnes d’éducation et de sensibilisation associées à la légalisation du cannabis et des produits à base de cannabis au Canada.

Introduction: Undergraduate university students experienced many academic and non-academic stressors during the first year of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, putting them at a greater risk of negative mental health outcomes. Reports worldwide have shown high incidences of depressive, anxiety, and stress scores among university students at the beginning of the pandemic. Emerging evidence also suggests that to cope with the stress and loneliness of the pandemic, many youth and young adults increased the amount of time they spent on social media platforms.Methods: Undergraduate students participated in an online study aimed to understand the link between time spent on social media, coping through the use of social media and problematic social media use (PSMU) with mental health symptoms, such as stress, depression, anxiety, and loneliness, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: While time spent on social media was only weakly associated with stress, depression, anxiety and loneliness scores, PSMU more strongly mapped onto these outcomes. Additionally, students who were coping highly using social media displayed elevated stress, depression, anxiety and loneliness levels in comparison to those reporting low levels of coping with social media. Finally, students who reported high levels of coping using social media displayed higher PSMU scores, with this relationship appearing more pronounced in students who had higher levels of loneliness. Conclusion: These data support evidence that it is not necessarily time spent on social media but rather PSMU that is relevant for mental health symptoms, and that PSMU is exacerbated by loneliness. Moreover, the current results highlight the effects of maladaptive coping on mental health symptoms and PSMU among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cannabis is a commonly used substance among university students that may have several negative health repercussions, including suicidal ideation (SI) and suicide attempts (SA). The factors that contribute to or help explain this relation remain uncertain. Earlier negative experiences, especially trauma encountered during early life, have been associated with the development of psychopathology upon later stressor encounters. In the current study, we examined the associations between SI and SA with problematic cannabis use among young adults and the role of earlier trauma experiences and trait impulsiveness in understanding this link. Among university students (N = 539), problematic cannabis use was moderately related to lifetime and past-12-months suicidal ideation and attempts. Impulsiveness mediated the relationship between problematic cannabis use and lifetime SI and SA. Moreover, previous life trauma moderated the relationship between problematic cannabis use and SA, such that the association between problematic cannabis use and SA was stronger among those who experienced high levels of trauma. These findings highlight behavioral and environmental factors that could predict suicide ideation and attempts among young cannabis users. Accordingly, trait impulsiveness and early trauma experiences should be considered, alongside problematic cannabis use, in suicide-risk detection and prevention strategies among young adults.

Problematic social media use (PSMU) parallels traditional characteristics of substance use disorders, including salience, functional impairment, and tolerance. An excessive focus on social reward and engaging in negative behaviors on social media may decrease certain executive functions. However, the role of how inhibitory control processes manifest in PSMU are not well understood. The current study aims to explore both the presence of inhibitory control impairments and harmful online behaviors, such as negative social comparison, in problematic social media use. A population of emerging adults (undergraduate university students; N = 503) completed several online questionnaires assessing problematic social media use, trait impulsivity, and negative social comparison on social media. An online Go-Nogo and Iowa Gambling Task were administered to further evaluate inhibitory control. Higher problematic social media use was significantly positively correlated with trait impulsivity, but not Go-Nogo or Iowa Gambling task performance. Negative social comparison on social media was a stronger predictor of PSMU, compared to inhibitory control measures. However, social comparison did not significantly interact with inhibitory control measures when predicting PSMU. When exploring subtypes of impulsivity, the strongest correlation with PSMU was observed with cognitive instability and attentional impulsivity. Our results suggest that aspects of impaired inhibitory control-namely, cognitive instability and attentional impulsivity-are present in problematic social media use. Understanding the interplay between features of addiction and the unique context of online socialization, such as negative social comparison, is central to defining problematic social media use as a potential behavioral addiction.

Background: Previous efforts to apply machine learning–based natural language processing to longitudinally collected social media data have shown promise in predicting suicide risk. Objective: Our primary objective was to externally validate our previous machine learning algorithm, the Suicide Artificial Intelligence Prediction Heuristic (SAIPH), against external survey data in 2 independent cohorts. A second objective was to evaluate the efficacy of SAIPH as an indicator of changing suicidal ideation (SI) over time. The tertiary objective was to use SAIPH to evaluate factors important for improving or worsening suicidal trajectory on social media following suicidal mention. Methods: Twitter (subsequently rebranded as X) timeline data from a student survey cohort and COVID-19 survey cohort were scored using SAIPH and compared to SI questions on the Beck Depression Inventory and the Self-Report version of the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology in 159 and 307 individuals, respectively. SAIPH was used to evaluate changing SI trajectory following suicidal mentions in 2 cohorts collected using the Twitter application programming interface. Results: An interaction of the mean SAIPH score derived from 12 days of Twitter data before survey completion and the average number of posts per day was associated with quantitative SI metrics in each cohort (student survey cohort interaction β=.038, SD 0.014; F4,94=3.3, P=.01; and COVID-19 survey cohort interaction β=.0035, SD 0.0016; F4,493=2.9, P=.03). The slope of average daily SAIPH scores was associated with the change in SI scores within longitudinally followed individuals when evaluating periods of 2 weeks or less (ρ=0.27, P=.04). Using SAIPH as an indicator of changing SI, we evaluated SI trajectory in 2 cohorts with suicidal mentions, which identified that those with responses within 72 hours exhibit a significant negative association of the SAIPH score with time in the 3 weeks following suicidal mention (ρ=–0.52, P=.02). Conclusions: Taken together, our results not only validate the association of SAIPH with perceived stress, SI, and changing SI over time but also generate novel methods to evaluate the effects of social media interactions on changing suicidal trajectory.