Jon D Elhai

University of Toledo · Department of Psychology

With the extensive use of mobile phones globally, some people engage in excessive or problematic phone use behaviors. However, little is known regarding the latent structure of problematic mobile phone use. The current study employed the Chinese versions of the Nomophobia Questionnaire, Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale, and Depression-Anxiety-...

Objective: Since the first study linking recorded smartphone variables to self-reported personality in 2011, many additional studies have been published investigating this association. In the present meta-analyses, we aimed to understand how strongly personality can be predicted via smartphone data. Method: Meta-analytical calculations were used...

The current study aimed to investigate comorbidity among symptoms of depression and internet gaming disorder (IGD) utilizing symptom network analysis in a sample of Chinese adolescents. A total of 1,362 Chinese adolescents (Mean age = 15.19 ± 1.67; range 13-21; 39.79% female, 56.02% male, 4.19% not disclosed) were recruited from 11 local secondary...

Background Trauma exposure can cause post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), and persistently experiencing PTSS may lead to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Research has shown that PTSS that emerged within days of trauma was a robust predictor of PTSD development. Aims To investigate patterns of early stress responses to tr...

Smartphones allow for several daily life enhancements and productivity improvements. Yet, over the last decade the concern regarding daily life adversities in relation to excessive smartphone use have been raised. This type of behavior has been regarded as “problematic smartphone use” (PSU) to describe the effects resembling a behavioral addiction....

In this chapter, we will first give a brief overview of the mobile instant messaging landscape. Subsequently, we focus on the instant messaging application “WhatsApp” and describe its current features and which kinds of data can be extracted from it. Based on the existing literature, we provide practical advice for researchers seeking to work with...

Este artigo discute a síndrome de FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) sobre experiências gratificantes, uma importante construção psicológica na contemporaneidade. Apresentamos uma síntese da construção da síndrome de FOMO e sua definição e mensuração operacional. Em seguida, revisamos pesquisas empíricas recentes sobre a relação da síndrome de FOMO com nív...

Objective: Psychopathology, cyberpsychology, and mass media theories link psychological symptoms, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), to increased media and technology usage (MTU). Given limited research in this area, we uniquely examined if specific MTU facets were associated with PTSD symptom severity. Method: A sample of 404 socioec...

Previous research has shown that problematic smartphone use (PSU) is related to several affect-related psychopathology variables. Emotion dysregulation has been regarded as a central psychological factor associated with that type of psychopathology. In this paper, the association between expressive emotional suppression, a form of emotion dysregula...

Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) are mental health conditions that often co-occur. The complexity of this comorbidity is well-documented, though the role of malleable cognitive-affective factors in PTSD/AUD warrants further study. Specifically, attaining a more comprehensive understanding of the role o...

Since the proliferation of smartphones, the general public as well as researchers have shown a growing interest in their potentially addictive effects. Over the past years, smartphone use research has grown exponentially. While scholars have moved away from “smartphone addiction” terminology in contemporary research and opted for alternative termin...

Previous evidence indicates that problematic social media use (PSMU), anxiety and depression frequently present simultaneously, which may increase symptom severity and related impairment. The main aim of this study is to measure the interconnections between these symptoms in a sample of Chinese university students and explore whether there are diff...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals are exposed to extreme hazards and workplace stressors. Social media postings by physicians and nurses related to COVID-19 from January 21st to June 1st 2020 were obtained from the Reddit website. Topic modeling via Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) using a machine-learning approach was perform...

As on-demand streaming technology rapidly expanded, binge-watching (i.e., watching multiple episodes of TV series back-to-back) has become a widespread activity, and substantial research has been conducted to explore its potential harmfulness. There is, however, a need for differentiating non-harmful and problematic binge-watching. This is the firs...

Problematic smartphone use (PSU) symptoms are related to mental health symptoms, such as depression and anxiety. However, less investigated are current psychopathology-related processes in mediating these relationships. We analyzed boredom proneness and rumination, two variables involving negative affectivity, as possible mediators between mental h...

Fear of missing out (FoMO) is a psychological construct that recently emerged in the age of social media. This study aims to provide an overview of the progress on FoMO research and offer a future research agenda based on FoMO-related scientific articles published. We carried out this aim using a two-stage methodological approach, based on an initi...

Background: Few studies have conducted latent profile analysis (LPA) of problematic smartphone use (PSU) severity to examine underlying subgroups of individuals with diverse PSU symptom presentations. We explored such latent profiles and relations with anxiety and fear variables, including severity of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxi...

Background and aims We aimed to systematically identify, evaluate and summarize the research on adolescent emotion dysregulation and problematic technology use. We critically appraise strengths and limitations and provide recommendations for future research. Methods We followed the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews...

The purpose of the current study was to examine the latent structure and cross-cultural measurement validity of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms assessed by the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5. Participants comprised trauma-exposed Chinese and Pakistani undergraduate students (...

Adolescents’ increased use of smartphones associates with stress and anxiety. Recently studies have examined mediating psychological constructs accounting for relations between stress and problematic smartphone use severity. The current cross-sectional study aimed to analyze anxiety and smartphone use frequency as possible mediators between stress...

Studies that apply digital phenotyping and mobile sensing strategies have increased in recent years enabling a better understanding of psychiatric and psychological conditions, as well as neurodegenerative disorders. Although in this context the study of so-called “digital biomarkers” is proliferating, few studies have actually linked digital footp...

In this study, problematic social media use (PSU) was modeled using machine learning with artificial neural networks (ANN) and support vector machines (SVM). Fifteen predictor variables were examined in predicting PSU, including social media usage habits (frequency of daily social media use, history of social media usage, frequency of checking soci...

The WHO recently included Gaming Disorder as a psychiatric diagnosis. Whether there are distinct groups of adolescents who differ based on severity of gaming disorder and their relationships with other mental health and addictive behavior outcomes, including problematic smartphone use (PSU), remains unclear. The current study explored and identifie...

Hyperinsulinemia promotes fat accumulation, causing obesity. Being an inflammatory state, obesity can induce further inflammation and is a risk factor for HPA (hypothalamic pituitary axis) dysregulation through hypercortisolism-related hyperglycemia. In another hypothesis, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) plays a significant role in the regulat...

Background Prospective research on the development and trajectory of PTSD symptoms after a traumatic event is crucial for assessment and early intervention. Further, examining predictors of PTSD pathology provides a better conceptualization of the temporal course of PTSD in trauma victims. Methods The present study examined PTSD symptom severity i...

Scientific literature suggests that Neuroticism is an important predictor in understanding individual differences in anxiety-related coping styles such as vigilance (positive association) and cognitive avoidance (negative association). Considering Pankseppian Affective Neuroscience (AN) theory could contribute to understand these relationships more...

Demographic and traumatic event-related risk factors for PTSD and dissociative symptoms have been examined in prior research. However, less research has examined this issue from a person-centered statistical approach to report subgroups of clinical presentations identified based on endorsed symptoms. The present study examined the relationship betw...

The amount of money individuals were willing to accept (WTA) to discontinue using prominent Chinese social media platforms (WeChat/QQ), the willingness to pay (WTP) for using these platforms, as well as WTA/WTP disparities were investigated in between-groups and within-subjects design studies to examine their existence, size, and psychological corr...

Recently, nomophobia (separation anxiety from mobile phone) has become a common phenomenon. The authors’ main purpose was to explore latent classes of solitude behaviors and how they are related to nomophobia. Chinese versions of the Nomophobia Scale and the Solitude Behaviour Scale were used in a sample of college students (351 female and 327 male...

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to drastic changes in the world. One prominent aspect has been the transformation in interpersonal relations, especially people’s attitude towards residents from COVID epicenters. Using a 2-wave national study in mainland China during the pandemic outbreak, this study examined Chinese people’s distancing and helping in...

A growing body of literature has demonstrated relations between mood-and anxiety-related psychopathology with problematic smartphone use (PSU) symptom severity. However, there has been little empirical inquiry of potential mediators of these relationships. The current study examined trait mindfulness and smartphone use expectancies as mediators of...

Purpose Health-related online fake news (HOFN) has become a major social problem. HOFN can lead to the spread of ineffective and even harmful remedies. The study aims to understand Internet users' responses to HOFN during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic using the protective action decision model (PADM). Design/methodology/approach The authors...

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, the use of digital devices, especially smartphones, remarkably increased. Smartphone use belongs to one’s daily routine, but can negatively impact physical and mental health, performance, and relationships if used excessively. The present study aimed to investigate potential correlates of problematic smartphone use (...

Numerous psychological variables are associated with self-reported/estimated smartphone use in college students. However, less is known about how additional psychological variables involving academic study and productivity relate to objectively-measured smartphone usage, such as procrastination, surface learning, and academic productivity. We admin...

Digital data are abundantly available for researchers in the age of the Internet of Things. In the psychological and psychiatric sciences such data can be used in myriad ways to obtain insights into mental states and traits. Most importantly, such data allow researchers to record and analyze behavior in a real-world context, a scientific approach w...

Understanding individual differences in attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) is of importance, among others in system development. Against this background, we sought to investigate associations between personality and attitudes towards AI. Relations were investigated in samples from two countries—Germany and China—to find potentially repl...

Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) is associated with self-reported problematic smartphone use (PSU) severity, but there is little investigation that includes objectively measured smartphone use. The aim of the current study was to provide insights into this domain. We combined the partially published data from two previous U.S.-based studies with college...

PurposeRates of mental disorders in the United States military have increased in recent years. National Guard members may be particularly at risk for mental disorders, given their dual role as citizen-soldiers and their increased involvement in combat deployments during recent conflicts. The Ohio Army National Guard Mental Health Initiative (OHARNG...

Risk factors for problematic smartphone use (PSU) have rapidly become an important area of research due to the prevalence of smartphones and functional impairment associated with PSU. Our aim was to examine relations between established predictors of PSU (depression and anxiety) and a potential mediator of PSU (anxiety sensitivity; AS). Participant...

Data protection became an increasingly important topic in today’s digital society. With regard to messaging applications, WhatsApp especially has been at the center of discussion. Despite the existence of alternative messaging applications seemingly protecting one’s data more than WhatsApp does, individuals seem to rarely use these alternatives. Th...

Recent years have seen a rise in research where so called “digital biomarkers” represent the focal study interest. Many researchers understand that digital biomarkers describe digital footprints providing insights into healthy and pathological human (neuro-)biology. Beyond that the term digital biomarker is also used at times to describe more gener...

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused a major impact on productivity and life functioning, and also led to adverse emotional reactions. In the face of this public health event, increased anxiety is one of the most common emotional reactions. Previous studies have shown that anxiety sensitivity, rumination and anxiety are closely related. Various dime...

The present study investigates links between fear of COVID-19, the personality trait of neuroticism, social networks use disorder, and smartphone use disorder (SNUD and SmUD, respectively) tendencies. In an online survey, N = 932 participants recruited at a Chinese University (237 males and 695 females) completed self-reports on fear of COVID-19, n...

Background: As an emergent public health event, COVID-19 has had a significant impact on mental health, particularly causing anxiety. Some cognitive-affective related studies have demonstrated that attentional control is related to levels of anxiety. More specifically, recent research has shown that anxiety sensitivity is uniquely associated with m...

Research has demonstrated that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with internet-related problematic behaviors. However, studies have not explored the linkage between PTSD symptoms and internet gaming disorder (IGD) symptoms. The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and IGD...

Previous research has shown that problematic smartphone use (PSU) is related to several affect-related psychopathology variables. Emotion dysregulation has been regarded as a central psychological factor associated with that type of psychopathology. In this paper, the association between expressive emotional suppression, a form of emotion dysregula...

This study was designed to measure the impact of smartphone usage among college students on their current academic success. We report the results from a survey among 99 undergraduate student iPhone users in a large Midwestern U.S. university. The survey combines objective smartphone use time directly obtained from Apple's ScreenTime feature with of...

Research in the field of digital phenotyping and mobile sensing has seen a tremendous rise in interest over the last few years. The psychological and psychiatric sciences were early adopters of implementing these promising techniques into their research to better understand the human mind. The most often studied data to predict mental states and tr...

Despite the popularity of the WeChat social media platform in China, investigations on its overuse potential as well as personal characteristics being associated with problematic WeChat use are scarce. Against this background, correlations of personality and Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) on rewarding experiences with problematic WeChat use were examin...

The fear of missing out on rewarding social experiences (FOMO) is an increasingly studied psychological construct, related to negative affectivity and increased online social engagement. Yet the heterogeneity of FOMO across individuals is not known. We conducted a latent profile analysis (LPA) of FOMO self‐report ratings to determine sample heterog...

Background Experiences of maltreatment in childhood, such as abuse and neglect, have been associated with poorer psychological well-being in adulthood, including elevated risk of revictimization and increased likelihood of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Maltreatment has also been associated with reduced resources related...

Background: Despite the benefits that may result from smartphone use, evidence increasingly indicates that smartphone use may also have negative consequences when used in a disordered manner. One major concept in this research domain is a putative smartphone use disorder. Objective: It is not known how a positive evaluation or acceptance of the sma...

Increasing attention has been given to the role of anxiety symptoms in influencing problematic smartphone use (PSU). However, less is known about potential moderation mechanisms underlying this relationship. In the present study, we examined the relationship between anxiety symptoms and PSU severity, and whether this relationship was moderated by p...

The WTA/WTP disparities for prominent Chinese social media platforms (WeChat/QQ) were investigated in between-groups and within-subjects design studies; including associations with personality, time spent on the platforms, and Social Networks Use Disorder. Individuals for the two online studies were recruited at Chinese universities. For between-gr...

Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), or the anxiety of missing out on exciting or interesting events happening, has received substantial attention over the past years, but its associations with age, gender, and personality are less researched. The aim of this work was to investigate these relationships. 3370 German participants completed the 10-item FoMO sc...

TikTok (in Chinese: DouYin; formerly known as musical.ly) currently represents one of the most successful Chinese social media applications in the world. Since its founding in September 2016, TikTok has seen widespread distribution, in particular, attracting young users to engage in viewing, creating, and commenting on “LipSync-Videos” on the app....

Individual differences in cognitive abilities and personality help to understand individual differences in various human behaviors. Previous work investigated individual characteristics in light of believing (i.e., misclassifying) fake news. However, only little is known about the misclassification of true news as fake, although it appears equally...

Social scientists have increasingly examined psychological constructs that may mediate the relationship between depressive and anxious affect and excessive, problematic smartphone use (PSU). The aim of this study was to examine two potential mediational variables – the fear of missing out (FOMO) and rumination – in accounting for the relationship b...

Background: Existing research using machine learning to investigate alcohol use among adolescents has largely neglected peer influences and tended to rely on models which selected predictors based on data availability, rather than being guided by a unifying theoretical framework. In addition, previous models of peer influence were typically estimat...

Mounting evidence suggests meaningful relationships between personality and tendencies toward Internet Use Disorder (IUD), Smartphone Use Disorder (SmUD) and Social Networks Use Disorder (SNUD). Results of past research vary not only depending on methods applied, but also with respect to data and platforms investigated. With the present work, we ai...

Little prior research on computer or smartphone interruptive notifications (INs) has examined psychological constructs associated with their adverse effects. We examined several mental health constructs in relation to disruptions in various daily activities resulting from INs. A total of 316 undergraduate students completed a web survey querying se...

In recent years, smartphone and social networking services (SNS) use have received a great amount of scholarly attention regarding their potentially addictive effects. Conceptualized as smartphone or SNS use disorder, research has consistently demonstrated relations with daily-life impairments. However, Smartphone Use Disorder (SmUD), WhatsApp Use...

Jaak Panksepp’s Affective Neuroscience Theory (ANT) belongs to the most prominent emotion theories in the psychological and psychiatric sciences. ANT proposes the existence of seven primary emotional systems deeply anchored in the mammalian brain. These emotional/motivational systems have been shaped by evolutionary processes and function as tools...

Objectives Research during prior virus outbreaks has examined vulnerability factors associated with increased anxiety and fear. Design We explored numerous psychopathology, sociodemographic, and virus exposure-related variables associated with anxiety and perceived threat of death regarding COVID-19. Method We recruited 908 adults from Eastern Ch...

Despite evidence for the association between emotion regulation difficulties and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), less is known about the specific emotion regulation abilities that are most relevant to PTSD severity. This study examined both item-level and subscale-level models of difficulties in emotion regulation in relation to PTSD severity...

This chapter covers the phenomenon of Internet use disorders (IUDs) and putative associations with different neurotransmitter and neuropeptide systems. Genes coding for such messengers can be seen as an important starting point in the complicated quest to understand human behavior including new phenomena such as IUDs. Therefore, a special focus of...

Background Both the latent variable model and the network model have been widely used to conceptualize mental disorders. However, it has been pointed out that there is no clear dichotomy between the two models, and a combination of these two model could enable a better understanding of psychopathology. The recently proposed latent network model (LN...

Background: The presence of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) increases post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in the months following injury. However, factors that link mTBI and PTSD development are still unclear. Acute stress responses after trauma have been associated with PTSD development. mTBI may impair cognitive functions and increa...

Background Revealing the dynamic interplay between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom clusters has always been an important topic in traumatic stress studies. Based on longitudinal studies, different hypotheses have been proposed to explain PTSD symptom dynamics. But currently, no study have been conducted to test these hypotheses in chil...

Introduction During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown/social distancing, many scientists pointed towards the problem of increased digital technology overuse in both children and adolescents. Methods Although a review of the literature shows that digital technology overuse in youth represents an important topic to be studied itself...

Akıllı telefonlar, günlük yaşam etkinliklerini çeşitli yönlerden zenginleştirmenin yanı sıra, üretkenliği de arttıran birçok özellik sunmaktadırlar. Öte yandan, araş- tırmalar akıllı telefon kullanımında aşırıya kaçılmasının, psikolojik sağlığın bo- zulması, işte üretkenliğinin ve okulda işlevselliğinin azalması gibi çeşitli alanlarda çeşitli olums...

For social media users, profile updating and receiving Likes may feel like a reward, and elicit positive emotions, reinforcing use of the platform. Could this mechanism have consequences for users’ self-esteem and happiness? Previous findings on the topic are mixed, and typically limited by use of self-reports of online activity. In the present stu...