Natasha Parent

Introduction: Although research has established a link between adolescents' problematic smartphone use and mental health, the nuances and directionality of this relationship remain unclear. This study offers a longitudinal analysis of the relationship between problematic smartphone use, Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), and depression in Canadian adolescents. Methods: The participants included 1,298 students from Southern British Columbia, Canada ( Mage = 14.56 years, SD = 1.15; 47% girls). Adolescents self‐reported their problematic smartphone use, FoMO, and internalizing problems over 3 years, starting from Time 1 (October–December 2020) to examine the cross‐lagged model linking problematic smartphone use, FOMO, and depression. Results: Results showed that after controlled for age, adolescents with higher levels of problematic smartphone use (at Time 1 and Time 2) tended to have higher levels of later depression (at Time 2 and Time 3). Moreover, adolescents with higher levels of problematic smartphone use at Time 1 also tended to show higher levels of FoMO at Time 2 and this, in turn, contributed to higher levels of depression at Time 3. Conclusion: The findings suggest a unidirectional relationship where problematic smartphone use predicts later depression, both directly and indirectly through increased FoMO. This highlights the importance of addressing smartphone use behaviors to mitigate the risk of depression in adolescents.

The objective of the present study was to examine developmental trajectories of cyber-aggression in early adolescence, as well as their relationship with predictive factors related to cyber-aggression (e.g., overt aggression, gender, and time spent online). Participants were 384 adolescents from the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada who were in grade six and grade seven at Time 1 of the study (192 boys, Mage = 13.62 years, SD = 0.74 year). Three years of longitudinal data on cyber-aggression, overt aggression, and time spent online were collected via online self-report questionnaires. Findings indicated three different trajectories of cyber-aggression: (a) a low-increasing (85.7% of the sample), (b) a stable trajectory (9.3% of the sample), and (c) a high-decreasing trajectory (4.9% of the sample). Adolescents who reported higher scores on overt aggression and spent more time online were more likely to be in the stable or high-decreasing groups. These findings highlight the importance of studying subgroups regarding the developmental course of cyber-aggression in early adolescence. The implications of present study findings give insight into gender differences and overt aggression among youth to inform cyber-aggression intervention and prevention.

The goal of the present study was to use machine learning to identify how gender, age, ethnicity, screen time, internalizing problems, self-regulation, and FoMO were related to problematic smartphone use in a sample of Canadian adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were N = 2527 (1269 boys; M_age = 15.17 years, SD = 1.48 years) high school students from the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Data on problematic smartphone use, screen time, internalizing problems (e.g., depression, anxiety, and stress), self-regulation, and FoMO were collected via an online questionnaire. Several different machine learning algorithms were used to train the statistical model of predictive variables in predicting problematic smartphone use. The results indicated that Shrinkage algorithms (lasso, ridge, and elastic net regression) performed better than other algorithms. Moreover, FoMO, emotional, and cognitive self-regulation made the largest relative contribution to predicting problematic smartphone use. These findings highlight the importance of FoMO and self-regulation in understanding problematic smartphone use.

University students are consistently ranked among the highest users of smartphones. As such, recent research has focused on examining the antecedents and consequences of problematic smartphone use among university students. While this work has been instrumental to our understanding of the risk and protective factors of developing problematic smartphone use, it has been largely variable-centered and thus fails to recognize the diversity with which problematic smartphone use is experienced among university students. As such, this study employed a person-centered approach (i.e., latent class analysis) to classify individuals based on patterns of problematic smartphone use feature/symptom cooccurrence among a sample of 403 Canadian university students. The relationships between these subgroups (or classes) and potential covariates (i.e., self-regulation, attachment anxiety, and attachment avoidance) were then examined to gain a more complete understanding of university students’ experiences of problematic smartphone use. Three classes of problematic smartphone use were identified: (1) “connected” displaying the features/symptoms of problematic smartphone use associated with being constantly connected to smartphones; (2) “problematic” displaying all of the features/symptoms of problematic smartphone use; (3) “distracted” displaying the features/symptoms associated with being distracted by smartphones. Findings indicate that attachment anxiety and avoidance were significantly associated with membership in the most pathological (i.e., “problematic”) class, suggesting that this may be an especially important risk factor for developing problematic smartphone use among university students. Moreover, self-regulation was significantly related to membership in the least pathological class (i.e., “connected”) suggesting that this may function as an important protective factor in developing more concerning patterns of problematic smartphone use. Findings from this work provide empirical evidence of a heterogeneity in patterns of problematic smartphone use associated with distinct individual-level risk factors. This has important implications for conceptualizations of problematic smartphone use and the development of intervention and prevention efforts.

As the COVID-19 global pandemic limited face-to-face social contact, mental health concerns increased for adolescents. Additionally, many adolescents turned to technology to communicate with their peers, which also raised concerns about adolescent smartphone addiction. However, research has yet to examine how mental health and technology engagement are related to adolescents’ feelings of social connection—an important developmental predictor of wellbeing across the lifespan. Specifically, little is known regarding the relative risk of adolescents’ mental health concerns, a known risk factor for social disconnection and isolation and smartphone addiction in contributing to feelings of social disconnection in the time of COVID-19. The present study investigated how mental health outcomes and smartphone addiction contributed to Canadian adolescents’ (n = 1753) feelings of social disconnection during COVID-19. Between October 2020 and May 2021, data were collected from five secondary schools in and around the lower mainland of British Columbia using an online-administered self-report questionnaire. Adolescents responded to questions about their smartphone addiction, internalizing problems, and an open-ended question about their feelings of connection to others. Findings from logistic regression analyses indicated that depression was a predictor of feeling socially disconnected: however, smartphone addiction was not associated with feelings of social disconnection during COVID-19. Implications of these findings can help inform the development of prevention programs targeting adolescents at risk for social disconnection in times of increased social isolation (e.g., a global pandemic). Specifically, these findings suggest that adolescents higher in depressive symptoms, and not those higher in smartphone addiction, are the ones most at risk.

This mixed‐methods study explored adolescents’ (n = 682) feelings of social connection in the time of the COVID‐19 pandemic and examined potential risk (fear of missing out, problematic smartphone use) and protective (parent/peer attachment, smartphone use) factors to social disconnection. Data were collected from two schools in Canada using an online survey with questionnaires and open‐ended questions. Three themes regarding adolescents’ feelings of social connection during the pandemic were identified through thematic content analysis: (1) feeling socially connected, (2) feeling socially disconnected, and (3) feeling socially indifferent. Moreover, regression analysis identified secure peer attachments as a protective factor against social disconnection in the time of the COVID‐19 pandemic, while fear of missing out was identified as an independent risk factor.

The goal of this study was to investigate socio-demographic and contextual factors in relation to the frequency of outdoor play in the neighbourhood in ear