College Student Social Media-Use, Depression, Anxiety, and Substance-UseMorley, D., Moser, M., & Kubota, C. , Research Methods (PSY 300/301)Dr. Heide Island, Dept. of Psychology| Pacific University | 2043 College Way | Forest Grove, OR 97116

IntroductionIn the past twenty years, social media has replaced much of our

face-to-face social engagement. Although social media provides an immediate social outlet instantly communicate, schedule, (Monroe, 2019).

Like persistent anxiety and depression, compulsive substance-use changes neural connectivity in the brain (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). According to Monroe (2019) the assimilation of smart phone adoption among Americans may be responsible for an increase in compulsive behavior disorders, especially among the Generation Z and Millennials cohorts. This is attributed to the reports of lower psychological well-being among these two generations relative to older generations (Global WebIndex, 2019). Further, substance use disorders are associated with higher anxiety and depression, according to Bose et al. (2018), 19.7 million Americans age 12 and older meet the diagnostic criteria of a substance use, of those, 8.5 million are comorbid for an affect or anxiety based condition.

MethodParticipants

We convenience sampled 13 male (Mage=21.22; SDage=2.14), 43 female (Mage=21.05; SDage=2.02), and 2 nonbinary (Mage=22.00; SDage=2.83) undergraduate students (N=59) within a liberal arts university in the Pacific Northwest.

MaterialsWe used a Demographic survey (21 item), the Cannabis Use

Disorder Identification Test-Revised (CUDIT-R) (Adamson, 2010), the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) (Barbor, 1989) , the Social Media Disorder Scale (9-item) (Van Den Eijnden, 2008) (SMDs), the Fear of Missing Out scale (FOMO) (Przybylski, 2013), the State Scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Form Y-2 (StAI) (Spielberger, 1968), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) (Beck, 1978), and individual participants report of screen-time and application usage.

Design and ProcedureWe asked the participants to answer all questions of our online

questionnaire on Qualtrics comprised of our demographic survey, the CUDIT-R, the AUDIT, the SMDs, the FOMO scale, the sTAI, the BDI, and questions regarding the application usage time recorded by their smart phone.

DiscussionThe purpose of this study was to explore the relationship

between social media-use, social media-use disorder, against scores measures of depression, anxiety, alcohol-use, and cannabis-use (more prevalent among college students of this generation than alcohol-use).

Our results suggest that although social media-use disorder is often associated in the literature (not through the DSM-V) with substance-use disorder. Our sample’s scores on the Social-Media-Use Disorder Scale were positively correlated with scores on the Alcohol Use Disorder Scale (though not for Cannabis, CUDIT) and the Fear-of-Missing Out Scale (a type of anxiety based disorder), though not the State scale for the STAI. This supports the literature suggesting Social Media-Use may be a reasonable inclusion in the next revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a behavioral-use disorder. Although, like gambling and gaming social media-use and compulsive smartphone use are complex and are dynamic depending on the context.

The most glaring confound for this study was the unprecedented, world-wide Shelter-In-Place order that occurred in March of 2020 and persisted through the academic year. The sampling solicitation was online and occurred just prior to the SIP order as well as during the imposed isolation. Further investigations, should pursue a replication following the SIP.

References• Adamson, S.J., Kay-Lambkin, F.J., Baker, A.L., Lewin, T.J., Thornton, L, Kelly, B.J., &

Sellman, J.D., (2010). An improved brief measure of cannabis misuse: The Cannabis Use Disorders Identification Test-Revised (CUDIT-R). Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 110, 1-2, 137-143. Received from: https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.drugalcdep.2010.02.017

• Beck, A. (1978) Beck Depression Inventory. Retrieved from, https://www.ismanet.org/doctoryourspirit/pdfs/Beck-Depression-Inventory-BDI.pdf

• Bose, J., Hedden, S.L., Lipari, R.N., & Park-Lee, E. (2018). Key substance use and mental health indicators in the United States: Results from the 2017 national survey on drug use and health. Received from: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/cbhsq-reports/NSDUHFFR2017/NSDUHFFR2017.pdf

• Monroe, J. (2019). Gen Z Depression: Why Our Young Adults Are at Risk. Newport Academy. Retrieved from https://www.newportacademy.com/resources/mental-health/gen-z-depression/.

• Perrin, A., & Anderson, M. (2019). Share of U.S. adults using social media, including Facebook, is mostly unchanged since 2018. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/ fact-tank/2019/04/10/share-of-u-s-adults-using-social-media-including-facebook-is-mostly-unchanged-since-2018/.

• Spielberger, C. D., Gorsuch, R. L., Lushene, R., Vagg, P. R., & Jacobs, G. A. (1968). State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Adults. Retrieved, from http://growingleadersfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/State-Trait-Anxiety-Inventory.pdf.

• Van Den Eijnden, R. J., Lemmens, J.S. (2016). The Social Media Disorder Scale. Computers in Human Behavior, 61, 478-487. DOI:10.2307/2529310.

• (1989) Alcohol Use Audit, National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Retrieved from https://www.drugabuse.gov/sites/default/files/files/AUDIT.pdf.

ResultsBased on our sample data, social media-use did not correlate with scores on the

measure of depression, BDI. But scores on the Social Media-Use Disorder Scale were significantly, correlated with scores on the AUDIT, r(58) =.27, p<.05 and the Fear-of-Missing-Out Scale, r(55) =.56, p<.01. Consistent with the literature on substance use and anxiety, collapsed scores related to frequency of alcohol, marijuana, caffeine, and reverse coded scores for weekly exercise, (i.e., Unhealthy Habits), were positively correlated with the AUDIT, r(47) =.49, p<.01 and BDI, r(55) =.35, p<.05; but not the Social Media-Use Disorder Scale or the CUDIT.

Further, among the college-aged students, the older the student, the more time they spent on phones r(37) =.52, p=.002, specifically with apps for health, r(55) =.83, p=.04, education, r(57) =.42, p=.001, productivity, r(56) =.27, p= .04, and reading, r(58) =.34, p=.006. Gaming was also positive correlated with the BDI, r(56) =.38, p=.004. An unexpected finding emerged, reading application-se was positively correlated with the State Scale of the STAI, r(58) =.33, p=.01 (trait was not measured). Suggesting, that reading may be a form of self-soothing behavior among those experiencing anxiety. This is particularly relevant given the sample was solicited just prior to the state of Oregon’s Shelter-in-Place order (March, 2020).