Facebook use intensity and depressive symptoms: a moderated mediation model of problematic Facebook use, age, neuroticism and extraversion

DOI

Background: Research on the relationship between Facebook use intensity and depressive symptoms has resulted in mixed findings. In contrast, problematic Facebook use has been found to be a robust predictor of depressive symptoms. This suggests that when intense Facebook use results in a problematic usage pattern, it may indirectly predict depressive symptoms. However, this mediation pathway has never been examined. Moreover, it remains unclear whether the possible indirect relationship between Facebook use intensity and depressive symptoms through problematic Facebook use is moderated by demographic (age), and personality (neuroticism and extraversion) characteristics. Methods: To address these gaps, we conducted an online cross-sectional study (n = 210, 55% female, age range: 18–70 years old, Mage = 30.26, SD = 12.25). We measured Facebook use intensity (Facebook Intensity Scale), problematic Facebook use (Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale), depressive symptoms (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale Revised), and neuroticism and extraversion (Ten Item Personality Inventory). Results: A mediation analysis revealed that problematic Facebook use fully mediates the relationship between Facebook use intensity and depressive symptoms. Moreover, a moderated mediation analysis demonstrated that this indirect relationship is especially strong among young users and users scoring high on neuroticism. Conclusions: These findings expand our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the relationship between Facebook use intensity and depressive symptoms and describe user characteristics that act as vulnerability factors in this relationship.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.34894/6NVHON
Related Identifier IsCitedBy https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-022-00990-7
Metadata Access https://dataverse.nl/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=doi:10.34894/6NVHON
Provenance
Creator Gugushvili, Nino ORCID logo; Täht, Karin ORCID logo; Ruiter, Robert A. C. ORCID logo; Verduyn, Philippe ORCID logo
Publisher DataverseNL
Contributor faculty data manager FPN; Gugushvili, Nino
Publication Year 2024
Rights info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess
OpenAccess false
Contact faculty data manager FPN (Maastricht University); Gugushvili, Nino (Maastricht University)
Representation
Resource Type survey data; Dataset
Format application/x-spss-sav
Size 67981
Version 1.0
Discipline Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Aquaculture; Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Aquaculture and Veterinary Medicine; Life Sciences; Social Sciences; Social and Behavioural Sciences; Soil Sciences