Rethinking Social Media and Mental Health: The Role of Emotion Regulation Difficulties

Social media use has become a near-universal feature of modern life, offering many opportunities for connection and self-presentation. Yet, certain patterns of use have been implicated in poorer psychological outcomes. Further, evidence suggests that individuals with emotion regulation difficulties may be particularly 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 to 84 years (Mage = 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, with no other types of social media use significantly predicting these symptoms. The model explained 50.1% of the variance in depression symptoms and 52.1% of the variance in anxiety symptoms. Taken together, these findings suggest the critical importance of emotion regulation over and above social media use in shaping mental health.