Rethinking social media and mental health: The role of emotion regulation difficulties

Research, on the whole, does not suggest that time spent on social media is associated with risks to mental health, although it is possible there are more nuances about how people use social media. Further, evidence suggests that individuals with emotion regulation difficulties may be drawn to certain social media behaviours as a means of coping with distress. The present study aimed to examine whether emotion regulation difficulties predict patterns of social media use and, in turn, symptoms of depression and anxiety. We examined four distinct types of social media use: (1) image management-based, (2) social comparison-based, (3) negative engagement-based, and (4) passive consumption-based. Sampling 548 adults aged 18–84 years (M age = 33.16, SD = 17.37; 401 (73.2 %) female; 128 (23.2 %) male), we tested a structural equation model to examine whether the four distinct types of social media use mediated links between difficulties in emotion regulation at Time 1 and depression and anxiety symptomology at Time 2, one week later. Results suggested that, when controlling for age, difficulties in emotion regulation significantly predicted all types of social media use and symptoms of depression and anxiety over one week. Only comparison-based social media use predicted anxiety symptoms over time. The model explained 50.1 % and 52.1 % of the variance in depression and anxiety symptoms, respectively. Taken together, these findings suggest the critical importance of emotion regulation in predicting mental health. By contrast, with the exception of social comparison and anxiety, no form of social media use predicted mental health outcomes. • Emotion regulation, social media use, and internalising symptoms were measured. • Difficulties in emotion regulation predicted depression and anxiety symptoms. • Only social comparison-based social media use predicted anxiety symptoms. • Emotion regulation predicts depression and anxiety symptoms, over social media use.