Addictive behaviors
August 16, 2026 · via Europe PMC
Erosion or protection? Testing directionality between problematic social media use and mindfulness over one year using a latent cross-lagged panel model.
Kruse F, Nagel A, Nabi R
AI summary — for doctors, generated from the abstract only
In early adolescents, heavier problematic social media use predicted lower mindfulness a year later, but not the reverse.
What was studied
Two-wave longitudinal study, one year apart, of 246 Swiss adolescents aged 10-13, using a latent cross-lagged panel model.
Key findings
- Problematic social media use and mindfulness were moderately negatively related at both waves.
- Baseline social media use predicted lower later mindfulness (beta = -0.188).
- Baseline mindfulness did not predict later problematic use.
Clinical relevance
Suggests that problematic social media use may erode attentional skills in young teens, rather than mindfulness protecting against it.
Who should care
Limitations
Small sample from German-speaking Switzerland with only two waves and self-report, so the directional finding is preliminary.
No change in care; consider the effects of problematic social media use on self-regulation when counselling young adolescents.
This is an AI-generated summary of the published abstract, not a clinical recommendation. It may not reflect the full text or subsequent updates — verify against the original source before acting on it.
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Problematic social media use (PSMU) and mindfulness are consistently negatively associated, but longitudinal evidence on their directional relationship remains limited. This study examined whether mindfulness prospectively predicts lower later PSMU (protection pathway), whether PSMU predicts lower later mindfulness (erosion pathway), or whether their longitudinal association is bidirectional.
METHODS
Participants were 246 early adolescents from German-speaking Switzerland (48.4 % girls), aged 10 to 13 years (M = 10.93, SD = 0.51), assessed approximately one year apart in spring 2024 and spring 2025. After establishing longitudinal measurement invariance, a two-wave latent cross-lagged panel model was estimated to examine temporal stability and prospective associations between the constructs.
RESULTS
PSMU and mindfulness were moderately and negatively associated within both waves, and both constructs showed temporal stability. Cross-lagged effects were asymmetric: baseline mindfulness did not predict later PSMU, whereas higher baseline PSMU predicted lower mindfulness at follow-up (β = - 0.188). Supplementary analyses showed no evidence of sex differences, and sensitivity analyses supported the same directional pattern.
CONCLUSIONS
Findings suggest that, in early adolescence, PSMU may be more likely to undermine later mindfulness than mindfulness is to protect against later PSMU. This pattern provides initial support for an erosion pathway during an early phase of social media uptake and highlights mindfulness as a possible outcome of digital behavior.
DOI
10.1016/j.addbeh.2026.108836
PMID
42612528
Research metadata (titles, abstracts, authors, publication dates) is sourced from Europe PMC, which aggregates content from PubMed/MEDLINE, PubMed Central, and other providers under the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM/NCBI). NLM does not claim copyright on abstracts; the original journal publishers or authors may hold rights to the full articles. AI-generated summaries are derived only from the abstract, never the full text, and are always labeled as AI-generated.
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