Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Dec 1;8(4):703-713.
doi: 10.1556/2006.8.2019.63. Epub 2019 Dec 13.

Relationships between addictive Facebook use, depressiveness, insomnia, and positive mental health in an inpatient sample: A German longitudinal study

Julia Brailovskaia  1 , Elke Rohmann  2 , Hans-Werner Bierhoff  2 , Jürgen Margraf  1 , Volker Köllner  3
Affiliations

Relationships between addictive Facebook use, depressiveness, insomnia, and positive mental health in an inpatient sample: A German longitudinal study

Julia Brailovskaia et al. J Behav Addict. .

Abstract

Background and aims: Individuals with high level of negative mental health often tend to use the social platform Facebook to escape from daily stress. They are at risk to develop an emotional bond to Facebook linked to a need to stay permanently online. The current work investigated addictive use of Facebook and its conceptual framework in clinical context.

Methods: In a longitudinal study design, duration of daily use of Facebook, addictive Facebook use, depressiveness, insomnia, and positive mental health (PMH) were assessed in a sample of 349 inpatients [Mage (SDage) = 50.13 (9.41)] of a psychosomatic rehabilitation clinic in Germany over a period of on average 6 weeks.

Results: Regression analyses revealed that duration of daily Facebook use at the first measurement time point (T1) served as significant positive predictor of addictive Facebook use at the second measurement time point (T2). Addictive Facebook use (T1) significantly positively predicted depressiveness and insomnia (T2). Its prediction of PMH (T2) was significantly negative. Mediation analyses showed that PMH (T1) partially mediated the association between addictive Facebook use (T1) and depressiveness (T2), and fully mediated the relationship between addictive Facebook use (T1) and insomnia (T2).

Discussion and conclusions: Current longitudinal results indicate that addictive Facebook use might negatively impact the recovery process of inpatients. Thus, it might be relevant to assess and consider addictive Facebook use in the clinical context. Therapeutic interventions are suggested to focus on the enhancement of inpatients' PMH level, which may buffer the negative effect of problematic Facebook use.

Keywords: addictive Facebook use; depressiveness; duration of daily Facebook use; insomnia; longitudinal study; positive mental health.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Visualization of Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2: (a) Hypothesis 1; (b) Hypothesis 2a; (c) Hypothesis 2b; (d) Hypothesis 2c
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Visualization of Hypothesis 3: (a) Hypothesis 3a; (b) Hypothesis 3b
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
(a) Mediation model including addictive Facebook use at T1 (X), positive mental health (M), and depression (Y); (b) Mediation model including addictive Facebook use at T1 (X), positive mental health (M), and insomnia (Y). Note. c: total effect, c′: direct effect; b: standardized regression coefficient, SE: standard error, CI: confidence interval
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abad V. C., Guilleminault C. (2005). Sleep and psychiatry. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 7(4), 291–303. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Alhabash S., Ma M. (2017). A tale of four platforms: Motivations and uses of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat among college students? Social Media + Society, 3(1), 1–13. doi:10.1177/2056305117691544 - DOI
    1. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
    1. Andreassen C. S., Billieux J., Griffiths M. D., Kuss D. J., Demetrovics Z., Mazzoni E., Pallesen S. (2016). The relationship between addictive use of social media and video games and symptoms of psychiatric disorders: A large-scale cross-sectional study. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 30(2), 252–262. doi:10.1037/adb0000160 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Andreassen C. S., Griffiths M. D., Gjertsen S. R., Krossbakken E., Kvam S., Pallesen S. (2013). The relationships between behavioral addictions and the five-factor model of personality. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 2(2), 90–99. doi:10.1556/JBA.2.2013.003 - DOI - PubMed

MeSH terms