Comparative network analysis of emotional and behavioral health and mobile gaming addiction among adolescents with and without cyberbullying victimization experience: A large population-based study in China.

BACKGROUND

Associations between emotional and behavioral health (EBH), mobile gaming addiction (MGA) and cyberbullying victimization experience (CVE) among adolescents have become a public health concern. This study aimed to examine whether the intricacies between EBH and MGA exhibited variations in adolescents with and without CVE from a network perspective.

METHODS

During the 2019-2020 academic year, a total of 248,360 adolescents were included in this study performed in Guangzhou, China. Participants reported information on their EBH, MGA, CVE and key demographic characteristics. Undirected networks and directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) were applied to explore the inter-associations of EBH domains with MGA symptoms stratified by CVE exposure, and group differences were examined.

RESULTS

Differences in the EBH-MGA networks were observed between adolescents with and without CVE, with higher global strength in the group with CVE (p < 0.001). "Tolerance" and "withdrawal symptoms" were the central symptoms for both groups. In adolescents without CVE, "tolerance" was identified as a distinct bridge symptom, whereas "withdrawal symptoms" exhibited a comparable role in those with CVE. The DAGs demonstrated that different upstream nodes of EBH (i.e., the group without CVE: "hyperactivity/inattention problems", that with CVE: "conduct problems") were linked to the same downstream nodes of MGA ("compulsion" and "somatic symptoms"), and different directional dependencies were revealed in two groups.

CONCLUSIONS

The central and key bridge nodes identified in EBH-MGA networks, along with the variations of CVE exposure, could contribute to developing tailored preventions and interventions for alleviating the comorbidity across adolescents with distinct experience histories.