Original title: Quantifying the relative associations of time of social media use and addictive social media use with emotional distress among U.S. adults
Hyosin Kim, Jakub Helvich, Giselle Lee, Brian Primack · September 2026
Spending hours on social media and feeling addicted to it both link to depression and anxiety. Scientists wanted to know which of these two matters more for emotional distress, especially in adults past their twenties. Researchers looked at national survey data from adults aged 30–70 years. They compared total time spent on apps against addictive use, which means feeling an uncontrollable urge to use social media. They put people into four ranked groups for both habits to see how each connects to mental health. They found that pure screen time does not drive the problem. When researchers tested both habits together, the link between total time and distress completely vanished. Instead, addictive use drove the risk. People with the most addictive habits were between 4 and 5 times more likely to report depression and anxiety than those with the lowest addictive use, regardless of hours spent.
You notice two friends who both spend a lot of time eating snacks. One eats snacks all afternoon but can easily stop when offered a meal. The other feels uneasy if snacks aren't nearby and eats even when full. Which friend is more likely to feel sick later? The one who feels they can't help it, not the one who simply eats a lot. In this paper, time of social media use is like total snack intake, and addictive social media use is like feeling controlled by snacks; the researchers found that feeling addicted predicted emotional distress far more than the hours themselves.
For decades, parents and doctors worried about how many hours people spent on social media. This study of U.S. adults aged 30–70 shows that the real risk comes from addictive patterns—feeling you can't stop—not just clocking screen time. That shifts focus from limiting use to identifying and helping people who feel trapped by their habits.
The abstract reports associations, not causation, so we cannot say social media addiction causes depression. The measures rely on self-report, which may be biased. The sample covers only U.S. adults aged 30–70, so findings may not apply to younger or older groups. The study did not examine specific platforms or types of use.
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Quantifying the relative associations of time of social media use and addictive social media use with emotional distress among U.S. adults — Hyosin Kim, Jakub Helvich, Giselle Lee et al. — PsyArXiv — doi:10.31234/osf.io/z8jeu_v1
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.