ABSTRACT

Background: The use of social media networks has grown exponentially in the past decade. These forms of communication are concerning when considering mental health. There has been very little research to inform our understanding of how social media addiction (SMA) may relate to mental illness.

Aims: We aimed to examine the link between SMA and Psychotic-Like Experiences (PLEs) in a sample of nonclinical Tunisian youth.

Methods: The Positive Subscale of Community Assessment of Psychotic Experiences and the Arabic Social Media Addiction Scale (ASMAS) were administered to a total of 1007 college students (64.6% female; mean age = 21.9).

Results: The majority of students (86.4%) spent their free time on the internet, and 98.5% reported regular use of social media networks. After controlling for demographic variables (gender, age) and substance use, the number of hours of social media use per day and the social consequences dimension of the ASMAS contributed significantly to the prediction of positive PLEs (bizarre experiences, perceptual abnormalities, persecutory ideation and magical thinking).

Conclusions: Our results build on previous literature that mainly focused on general internet use, and consistently indicated an association between SMA and PLEs. SMA may be an important target for early intervention in psychosis.

摘要

背景：社交媒体网络的使用在过去十年中呈指数级增长。在考虑心理健康时，这些交流形式令人担忧。很少有研究可以让我们了解社交媒体成瘾 (SMA) 如何与精神疾病相关。

目的：我们的目的是在非临床突尼斯青年样本中检查 SMA 与精神病样体验 (PLEs) 之间的联系。

方法：对总共 1007 名大学生（64.6% 女性；平均年龄 = 21.9）进行了精神病体验社区评估的积极分量表和阿拉伯社交媒体成瘾量表（ASMAS）。

结果：大多数学生 (86.4%) 将空闲时间花在互联网上，98.5% 的学生报告经常使用社交媒体网络。在控制人口统计变量（性别、年龄）和物质使用后，每天使用社交媒体的小时数和 ASMAS 的社会后果维度对预测积极的 PLE（奇异经历、知觉异常、迫害观念和神奇的思维）。

结论：我们的结果建立在以前主要关注一般互联网使用的文献之上，并一致表明 SMA 和 PLE 之间存在关联。SMA 可能是早期干预精神病的重要靶点。