Digital stress and problematic social media use among college students: exploring dual emotional pathways and the moderating role of cognitive reappraisal

Digital stress has emerged as a significant form of psychological strain in online environments and is closely associated with problematic social media use (PSMU). However, the emotional and cognitive processes underlying this relationship remain unclear. Guided by the stress-coping framework and the Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model, the present study examined whether anxiety and depression mediate the association between digital stress and PSMU, and whether cognitive reappraisal moderates these indirect effects. A total of 2,103 Chinese university students (1,035 males; mean age = 20.37 years, SD = 1.26) completed self-report measures of digital stress, anxiety, depression, cognitive reappraisal, and PSMU. Structural equation modeling and latent moderated structural equation analyses were conducted to test the proposed model. Results indicated that higher levels of digital stress were associated with greater PSMU, both directly and indirectly through anxiety and depression. Moreover, cognitive reappraisal attenuated the strength of these associations, suggesting a moderating role in the relationship between digital stress and emotional responses. These findings support a dual emotional pathway framework, indicating that digital stress may be linked to problematic social media engagement through high-arousal (anxiety-related) and low-arousal (depression-related) emotional processes. The results provide empirical support for extending emotion regulation models to digital contexts and underscore the importance of strengthening cognitive reappraisal skills to promote healthier social media engagement among university students.