Mariek Magdalena Petra Vanden Abeele

Texting is the most ubiquitous form of computer-mediated communication, but its ability to satisfy relational needs in an always-on society remains under scrutiny. This study examines how message content and psychological context—specifically emotional fatigue and availability pressure—determine the relational value of texting. Analyzing 5,821 ecological momentary assessments from 112 adults, the results reveal that while texting and offline interactions positively predict connectedness, offline interactions demonstrate a meaningfully stronger effect. Within the context of texting, meaningful and affectionate interactions are associated with high levels of connectedness compared with those of small talk or practical exchanges, supporting the hierarchy of communication episodes proposed by communicate bond belong theory. Notably, neither emotional fatigue nor availability pressure significantly influences the association between texting and connectedness. These findings highlight that the relational benefits of texting are resilient to emotional fatigue and availability pressure and primarily depend on the nature of the content instead of users' psychological context.

This randomised controlled trial examines if a one-week social media abstinence intervention can reduce social media use by lowering automaticity of and craving for social media use. Participants motivated to reduce their social media use were assigned to an immediate one-week detox (N = 50) or a waitlist control condition (N = 64). Using a combination of smartphone usage logging and weekly surveys, we found that the detox produced significant reductions in social media use (d = 0.51), automaticity (d = 1.10), and craving (d = 0.58) one week post-detox relative to the waitlist group. Exploratory mediation analyses provided suggestive evidence that automaticity partially mediated the detox's effect on social media use. Furthermore, baseline automaticity predicted self-reported vulnerability to slips of action during the detox, i.e. spontaneous attempts to open removed apps. Pooling data from both groups after each had completed the detox (N = 108), we found that the reductions persisted across the three-week follow-up and that social media use remained below baseline at a six-month follow-up in a subsample (N = 46). The detox also shifted participants' subjective relationship with social media, increasing perceived control and reducing self-reported mindlessness, without changing how much they liked it or considered it purposeful. Together, these findings suggest that for those who want to cut back, taking a short break is an effective way to disrupt social media habits and restore a sense of control.

Digital well-being is an emerging concept that refers to the balance that individuals experience between the benefits and the drawbacks of ubiquitous connectivity. This article presents a preregistered study testing a Digital Well-being Scale to measure this subjective experience. We administered the scale to 1438 Flemish adults. The psychometric analysis of the scale revealed a second-order two-factor structure, with perceived benefits (hedonic and eudaimonic) and perceived drawbacks from smartphone use (loss of control and functional impairment) as separate dimensions. These dimensions formed internally consistent subscales. The findings of this study thus point towards the Digital Well-being scale as a useful measurement tool for assessing the benefits and drawbacks that individuals experience from using digital technologies, that can be integrated in future research examining the antecedents, correlates and outcomes of digital well-being.

A conundrum of digital disconnection research is that individuals who report digitally disconnecting more often report poorer digital well-being. This article explores whether underlying differences in trait self-control might explain this conundrum. Study 1 (N = 1,315 adults) shows support for a Simpson’s paradox: Within persons, deliberate digital disconnection from the smartphone is linked to reduced smartphone ill-being, but between persons it links to increased smartphone ill-being. Negative between-person associations between trait self-control and both deliberate disconnection and smartphone ill-being suggest self-control as a confounder. Study 2 (N = 2,000 adults) explores this hypothesis further by contrasting more effortful, deliberated disconnection strategies with disengagement strategies reflecting situational goal-alignment. The findings show cognitive control associates positively with the use effortful disconnection strategies, and negatively with using less effortful disengagement strategies. Combined, the studies suggest digital disconnection takes more effort for some people than for others. This has implications for intervention design.

Empirical evidence on whether the presence of a smartphone reduces attentional resources is mixed, suggesting additional factors are involved. The current study examines one such factor, namely the presence (or absence) of reward expectations. In a lab experiment, 111 participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (no smartphone present, smartphone present, or smartphone present with induced reward-message expectation). They completed a Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) before and after the manipulation. Results indicate that the presence of a smartphone reduced reaction-time performance on the SART, but that reward expectations did not lead to an additional performance decrement. Exploratory analysis indicated that individuals higher in online vigilance showed greater attentional disruption in both the smartphone presence and reward expectation conditions. Together, these findings suggest that smartphone-related attentional costs may depend more on reward history and stable individual differences than on momentary reward anticipation.

Research on social media use and mental health has increasingly emphasized that global usage metrics such as screentime obscure the heterogeneous nature of users’ online experiences. This study introduces and validates the Social Media Content and Engagement scale (SMCE), a formative self-report measure assessing four dimensions of social media use: (1) frequency of exposure; (2) engagement with content; (3) perceived emotional impact (with valence and intensity as separate dimensions), and (4) perceived algorithmic targeting, applied across six major content categories. A representative adult sample (UK-based) completed baseline measures (n = 573) and a one-month follow-up (n = 486). As expected for a formative measure, interaction dimensions contributed differentially across content types, confirming that each dimension captures unique, non-redundant information. Indicator collinearity was low, and test–retest reliability ranged from fair to good. Convergent and discriminant validity were supported through expected associations with affective well-being and emotional reactivity, with no associations observed with need for cognition. Structural analyses showed that mental well-being and influencer content were weakly but significantly associated with depression, anxiety and stress complaints. Emotional valence was associated with depressive symptoms and predicted anxiety and stress complaints over one month above baseline symptomatology. Emotional intensity showed small but consistent positive associations with depression, anxiety, and stress. Perceived algorithmic targeting was not significantly associated with mental health outcomes. Overall, findings demonstrate that the SMCE is a psychometrically robust tool for capturing content-specific social media experiences and provides a more nuanced alternative to traditional global usage metrics.

Dit essay brengt zeven kerninzichten samen die voortvloeien uit onderzoeksprojecten aande Universiteit Gent (UGent), Universiteit Antwerpen (UAntwerpen) en KatholiekeUniversiteit Leuven (KULeuven) die de wetenschap achter digitaal welbevinden en digitaalontkoppelen onderzoeken:• Project DISCONNECT, gefinancierd door de Europese Onderzoeksraad onder het Horizon2020 Research and Innovation programma (950635).• Project DISCONNECT TO RECONNECT, gefinancierd door het Vlaams Fonds voorWetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO-Vlaanderen; S005923N).• Project COST OF 24/7, gefinancierd door het Vlaams Fonds voor WetenschappelijkOnderzoek (FWO-Vlaanderen; G075524N).

This study examines how life coaches navigate the tension between the authenticity of digital disconnection and the selective, strategic performance of that disconnection on Instagram, either through discrete (unpublicized) or performative (publicly framed) practices. Drawing on interviews with 15 Flemish-Belgian and Dutch life coaches and a qualitative analysis of their Instagram content, the study shows how disconnection emerges as an ongoing negotiation between well-being aspirations and platform-driven demands for visibility. Building on prior research that highlights how digital disconnection can function as a marker of digital awareness, responsibility, and authenticity, the study argues that disconnection is not only something life coaches do, but also something they must continuously manage within the creator economy: aligned with personal values and self-care, yet difficult to sustain when professional success depends on staying connected, visible, and responsive. By foregrounding tensions between what is made visible and what is kept invisible, our findings show how both discrete and performative disconnection operate as forms of visibility labor through which life coaches negotiate competing pressures, ranging from well-being and authenticity to the platform logics of ongoing presence and engagement. For life coaches, navigating this ambivalence exposes the broader challenges of living, and guiding others toward, a ‘digitally well-lived life’ in an age where even disconnection must be made visible.

Life coaches claim to offer men pathways to “authentic” masculinity through self-development. Despite their growing popularity, scholars have paid little attention to how these coaches negotiate and perform masculinity. In addressing this gap, we examine how male-oriented life coaches understand, construct, and perform masculinity—both online and offline. Drawing on a hybrid ethnographic approach—analyzing Instagram content from 15 life coaches and field observations from three men’s circles—we unveil how life coaches promote a dominant vision of masculinity that appears to challenge restrictive norms—for instance by encouraging emotional expression—yet consistently reframes such practices within defensive narratives that reinforce hegemonic ideals of masculinity. The findings show how life coaching functions as a site of negotiation, where gendered anxieties are addressed through commercially mediated forms of masculine belonging, reproducing normative gender hierarchies under the guise of self-improvement.

This study examines digital emotion regulation as a dynamic process, involving both processes of media selection and media effects. Using a large intensive-longitudinal data set with more than 50,000 experience sampling data points gathered from over 1,000 adults, we investigated cross-lagged associations between negative affect and two smartphone-based strategies for regulating negative emotions, namely emotion expression and avoidance. Results indicate that individuals are more likely to engage in both smartphone-based expression and avoidance following negative affect (i.e., media selection). However, we observed no meaningful effect of smartphone-based emotion regulation on subsequent negative affect (i.e., media effects). Additionally, we explored the person-specificity of these associations, showing that media selection effects vary meaningfully across individuals, while media effect associations do not. Finally, using passively sensed behavioral smartphone data, we found that smartphone-based emotion expression partially explained the association between negative affect and mobile communication. Similarly, smartphone-based avoidance partially explained the association between negative affect and social media use. Overall, these findings suggest that while individuals may turn to smartphone-based strategies such as negative emotion expression and avoidance in response to negative emotional states, clear evidence of their short-term effectiveness in reducing negative affect is still lacking. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).