Use of social network as a coping strategy for depression among young people during the COVID-19 lockdown: findings from the COMET collaborative study

Abstract

Abstract Background Use of social media (SM) has exponentially grown particularly among youths in the past two years, due to COVID-19-related changing lifestyles. Based on the Italian COvid Mental hEalth Trial (COMET), we investigated the association between SM use and depressive symptoms among Italian young adults (aged 18–24). Methods The COMET is a nationwide multi-center cross-sectional study that investigated socio-demographic data, social networking addiction (BSNAS), depression, anxiety, and stress (DASS-21), as well as impulsiveness (BIS-15) and aggressiveness (AQ) in a large sample of youngsters, in order to assess the association between BSNAS and DASS-21 indices. Mediation analyses were performed to evaluate the role of impulsiveness and aggressive personality traits in the association between SM use (SMU) and depression. Results 75.8% of the sample (n = 491) had a problematic SMU. SMU was reduced by high AQ and high DASS-21 scores (F = 42.338, p < 0.001, R 2 = 0.207). Mediation analyses showed that SMU negatively predicted depressive symptomatology with the interaction mediated by AQ total (ß = − 0.1075), physical (ß = − 0.207) and anger (ß = − 0.0582), BIS-15 total (ß = − 0.0272) and attentional (ß = − 0.0302). High depressive levels were predicted by high AQ scores, low SMU levels, low verbal and physical AQ, and low attentional BIS-15 (F = 30.322, p < 0.001, R 2 = 0.273). Depressive symptomatology negatively predicted SMU with their interaction mediated by AQ total (ß = − 0.1640), verbal (ß = 0.0436) and anger (ß = − 0.0807), BIS-15 total (ß = − 0.0448) and attentional (ß = − 0.0409). Conclusions SMU during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic could have a beneficial role in buffering negative consequences linked to social isolation due to quarantine measures, despite this association being mediated by specific personality traits.

Keywords

• Aggressiveness
• COVID-19
• Impulsiveness
• Problematic social media use
• Social networking