Social media use, loneliness and emotional distress among young people in Europe

The rapid rise of social media has transformed communication, raising concerns about its association with mental health and well-being. This study investigates the link between social media usage, loneliness, and emotional distress among young people in Europe. We draw on the 2022 Loneliness Survey, the first EU-wide individual-level survey with detailed information on social media usage time and patterns, along with a comprehensive set of socio-economic characteristics and measures of loneliness and emotional disorders. Focus-ing on individuals aged 16–35 across the 27 EU Member States, we find that intensive use of social networking sites (more than two hours per day) is positively associated with loneliness and with more frequent feelings of emotional distress. In contrast, intensive use of messaging tools shows no consistent association with emotional distress and is, at most, weakly associated with lower levels of loneliness in the main specifications. These findings are robust to alternative measures of loneliness and emotional distress and to various model specifications, including controls for physical health, the use of other digital tools, extracurricular activities (sports and cultural activities), the quality and size of offline social network and pre-existing loneliness and emotional disor-ders during childhood. The results indicate that gender and the strength of offline social networks moderate the association between intensive social media use and loneliness and emotional distress. In particular, the estimated associations are stronger among females and among individuals with smaller offline social networks, the latter being consistent with the poor-get-poorer hypothesis. Finally, our results suggest that engagement patterns—namely the distinction between passive and active use—play a limited mediating role. • Intensive use of social networking sites correlates positively with loneliness and emotional distress whereas excess use of messaging tools plays a very limited role. • Gender and the strength of offline social networks moderate the association between intensive social media use and loneliness and emotional distress. • Social Media engagement patterns—namely the distinction between passive and active use—play a limited mediating role.