This study aimed to explore the effects of mattering, social media addiction, online activity, school connectedness, age, and gender on anxiety/depressive symptomatology among U.S. adolescents. A nationally representative Qualtrics panel sample consisting of 441 adolescents (M_age = 17.3; SD_age = 1.67) participated in this study. The results of a three-step hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that gender, social media usage, and mattering were most strongly associated with adolescent distress (i.e., anxiety/depressive symptom reporting). For the full predictive model with all six predictors added, mattering was found to significantly improve the prediction of adolescents’ anxiety/depressive symptomatology, contributing an additional 12.8% of explained variance. For this sample, adolescent girls participants reported experiencing more anxiety/depressive symptoms. Furthermore, higher levels of social media usage, indicative of an addictive stage, and lower levels of mattering were related to more significant anxiety/depressive symptomatology. Overall, mattering was found to significantly correlate with adolescent distress, online activity, problematic social media usage, and school connectedness, evidencing its importance in addressing adolescent mental health.

本研究旨在探讨重要、社交媒体成瘾、在线活动、学校连通性、年龄和性别对美国青少年焦虑/抑郁症状的影响。由 441 名青少年组成的具有全国代表性的 Qualtrics 小组样本（M_年龄= 17.3；SD_年龄= 1.67) 参与了这项研究。三步分层多元回归分析的结果表明，性别、社交媒体使用和关注与青少年痛苦（即焦虑/抑郁症状报告）的相关性最强。对于添加了所有六个预测因子的完整预测模型，发现“重要”显着改善了对青少年焦虑/抑郁症状的预测，贡献了额外 12.8% 的解释方差。对于这个样本，少女参与者报告说经历了更多的焦虑/抑郁症状。此外，较高水平的社交媒体使用表明上瘾阶段和较低水平的重要性与更显着的焦虑/抑郁症状有关。总体而言，发现物质与青少年的痛苦显着相关，