A number of studies show that adolescents who play games or use social media at risk tend to be lonelier and have poorer mental well-being. However, the usual approach is to work with a sum of symptoms, so it remains unclear which specific manifestations of risky use are behind this connection and whether they are the same for gaming and social media. This is precisely what a new international study, in which our members Andrea Stašek and Lukas Blinka participated, focused on.
An international team from ten countries worked with data from 33,586 adolescents aged 11 to 15 years, from the 2021-2022 International Health Survey of School Children (HBSC). They analyzed individual symptoms of risky gaming and risky social media use and their links to loneliness, mental well-being and physical problems such as headaches or sleep problems. They used network analysis, which shows how two specific symptoms are related after the influence of all others is subtracted. Data collection was partly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, when adolescents spent more time online than before.
The most common symptom is also the connecting one
Across gaming and social media, the most common symptom was escape from worries, i.e. playing or using the network to avoid thinking about unpleasant things. For gaming, 48% of boys and 41% of girls reported it. There was a more pronounced gender difference for social media: 56% of girls compared to 38% of boys said they used the networks to relieve unpleasant thoughts.
When the team analyzed the network including symptoms of risky gaming and social media use, it turned out that using social media to escape from worries was the manifestation that connected risky use with mental health indicators. In both boys and girls, it was associated with loneliness, and in girls, with lower overall well-being and nervousness. The other symptoms of risky use did not form such a link.
However, the links between risky use symptoms and mental health are also weak, so this is not evidence that the networks or games were strongly related to problems or even caused difficulties. Furthermore, the data come from a single measurement, so they do not indicate the direction of the influence: it could just as well be true that lonely teenagers escape to the networks more often, or that escaping to the networks deepens loneliness. The author team considers it likely that both are true at the same time.
Those who deny it when playing games also deny it when playing networks
The second finding concerns the extent to which symptoms overlap between the two media. The negative consequences of use were most strongly related across gaming and social networks: denial of how much time one spends on games and networks, conflicts due to use, and problems in relationships. This means that, for example, a teenager who lies about gaming usually also lies about social networks. The tendency towards such behavior is apparently more general and is not only related to gaming or using networks.
On the other hand, internal symptoms (clinging thoughts about games/networks, restlessness when one cannot use them, or the need to use networks or games more and more time) overlapped less between the media. The negative consequences of risky use are therefore not tied to a specific medium, while what we experience with them is specific to games and social networks.
Where to focus prevention
According to the author team, the results show that prevention should not only focus on how much time adolescents spend online, but also on why they go there. It should offer ways to manage unpleasant emotions, establish quality relationships and be able to use technology in moderation. The team also points out that escaping from worries in itself may not be a symptom of problems: for many people it is a common way to relax and it only becomes risky when it becomes the only available strategy. Therefore, it is important to support adolescents in diverse activities and relationships that can create a wider range of support when they are feeling unwell
Recommended citation:
Stašek, A., Löchner, D., Boniel-Nissim, M., Canale, N., van den Eijnden, R., Furstova, J., Galeotti, T., Hulbert, S., Jeriček Klanšček, H., Marino, C., & Blinka, L. (2026). Problematic gaming, problematic social media use, and psychological well-being in adolescents: Exploring networks of symptoms in 10 European countries. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-026-01123-3
