{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,21]],"date-time":"2026-09-21T06:02:46Z","timestamp":1789970566219,"version":"4.0.1"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,21]],"date-time":"2026-09-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789948800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Public Health"],"abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    Digital media\u2019s mental-health signature may depend on which platform a population uses, yet nationally representative evidence that distinguishes platforms is scarce, especially for upper-middle-income, Muslim-majority, non-Arab settings. We examined platform-specific associations between digital media use and psychological distress in the Turkish adult population, and whether age moderates them, using the 2024 Turkish General Social Survey, a probability-based, nationally representative survey of adults aged 18 and over (\n                    <jats:italic>N<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f2,615; analytical\n                    <jats:italic>N<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f1,478 after listwise deletion). Psychological distress was measured with a nine-item past-week negative-affect index informed by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and unweighted hierarchical ordinary least squares regression with heteroskedasticity-consistent (HC3) robust standard errors modeled demographic, aggregate-exposure, platform-specific, age-interaction, and loneliness blocks, with a Johnson\u2013Neyman procedure characterizing age moderation. Instagram use (\n                    <jats:italic>\u03b2<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f+.066,\n                    <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f.011) was associated with higher psychological distress and WhatsApp use (\n                    <jats:italic>\u03b2<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f-.073,\n                    <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f.007) with lower distress, whereas total internet time, TikTok, and YouTube showed no detectable association. Overall social-media time was likewise positively associated with distress (\n                    <jats:italic>\u03b2<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f+.088,\n                    <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f.016), but the platform contrasts, not aggregate exposure, survived the most demanding clustering and exposure-scale checks. The positive Instagram association declined with age and was statistically indistinguishable from zero by the early forties, a secondary finding that turned on whether loneliness entered the model (age-by-Instagram\n                    <jats:italic>\u03b2<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f-.069,\n                    <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f.014 with loneliness,\n                    <jats:italic>\u03b2<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f-.060,\n                    <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u202f=\u202f.059 without). Adding loneliness \u2014 an affective covariate overlapping the outcome battery \u2014 raised explained variance to\n                    <jats:italic>R<\/jats:italic>\n                    <jats:sup>2<\/jats:sup>\n                    \u202f=\u202f.359 (largely shared variance) while the platform and aggregate coefficients remained significant. In this national sample the platform types diverged: algorithm-driven image-platform use (Instagram) showed a small positive association with distress, interpersonal-messaging use (WhatsApp) a small inverse (protective-direction) one. The headline effect sizes were below Cohen\u2019s small-effect benchmark and estimated at the limit of what this design could detect, and the cross-sectional data require longitudinal confirmation of the platform contrasts. Whether distinguishing platform types, rather than treating screen time as uniform, improves population-level digital well-being efforts remains a hypothesis for longitudinal and experimental testing.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpubh.2026.1941229","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,21]],"date-time":"2026-09-21T05:34:59Z","timestamp":1789968899000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Platform-specific digital media use and psychological distress among Turkish adults: evidence from a nationally representative, cross-sectional survey"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Ayd\u0131n","family":"Aktay","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Sakarya University","place":["Sakarya, T\u00fcrkiye"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Muhammed Veysel","family":"Bilici","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, K\u0131rklareli University","place":["K\u0131rklareli, T\u00fcrkiye"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mehmet Veysel","family":"Karata\u015f","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Faculty of Theology, Siirt University","place":["Siirt, T\u00fcrkiye"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Abdullah","family":"Y\u0131ld\u0131rmaz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Public Relations and Publicity Program, Vocational School of Social Sciences, Batman University","place":["Batman, T\u00fcrkiye"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","volume-title":"iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, 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