UNDERSTANDING THE DIGITAL AGE MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS: SOCIAL COMPARISON PROCESSES, CYBERBULLYING EXPOSURE, AND SCREEN TIME EFFECTS ON EMOTIONAL REGULATION AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHOLOGICAL WELLBEING

Abstract

Adolescent mental health has become a major public health concern as depression, anxiety, self-harm ideation, and emotional dysregulation have intensified alongside the rapid expansion of smartphones and social media. This study examined how the digital environment shapes adolescent psychological wellbeing through three interacting mechanisms: upward social comparison generated by curated visual content, cyberbullying victimization, and cumulative screen time effects on emotion regulation. A cross-sectional mixed-methods design was used with 547 adolescents aged 13 to 18 years from eight secondary schools across urban and semi-urban districts. Quantitative measures captured daily platform use, passive versus active engagement, cyberbullying exposure, fear of missing out, depression, anxiety, body image dissatisfaction, self-esteem, and difficulties in emotion regulation, while 68 semi-structured interviews provided qualitative insight into adolescents lived digital experiences. Results showed a clear dose-response relationship between daily social media hours and psychological distress. Participants using social media for more than four hours per day had 2.3 times higher odds of clinically significant depressive symptoms than those using it for less than one hour. Passive social media use predicted depression indirectly through social comparison, with social comparison fully mediating the relationship between passive use and self-esteem reduction. Social comparison was also the strongest predictor of body image dissatisfaction. Cyberbullying victimization produced the highest independent effect on anxiety, explaining 28.4% of its variance and remaining significant after controlling for screen time, social comparison, and fear of missing out. Screen time was strongly associated with emotion regulation deficits, particularly impulse control problems and limited access to adaptive regulation strategies, with sleep disruption accounting for 22% of this pathway. Fear of missing out emerged as a central bridge between loneliness, compulsive platform checking, emotional dysregulation, and depressive symptoms. Female adolescents showed stronger comparison-based vulnerability, although harmful associations were present across genders. Digital literacy, family support, teacher support, and guided screen time reduction showed protective effects. Findings support a multi-mechanism model requiring urgent coordinated school, clinical, family, and platform-level interventions.