Abstract / Summary
Abstract Adolescent digital use is associated with psychological difficulties, but prospective relationships may differ between symptoms of problematic use and usage duration. We analysed two-wave data from 6,092 adolescents in the Chinese SEARCH cohort followed for approximately one year and 7,838 UK Millennium Cohort Study participants followed from ages 14 to 17. Cross-lagged panel networks accounted for baseline scores across six domains within each cohort. In SEARCH, emotional distress predicted later problematic digital use (β = 0.160); the reciprocal association was also positive (β = 0.079). In the UK cohort, hyperactivity/inattention and conduct problems positively predicted subsequent social media use and gaming, whereas internalising distress showed small negative coefficients for both behaviours. These findings identify different psychological domains associated with later digital use across cohorts and support distinguishing symptoms of problematic use from time spent on social media or gaming.