The relationship between autistic traits, social media addiction, and loneliness in adolescents with ADHD

Our study aims to investigate the relationship between autistic traits, social media addiction, and loneliness among adolescents diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and to compare our findings with healthy controls.

A total of 90 adolescents aged 14-18 years, 50 of them diagnosed with ADHD and 40 healthy controls, were included in our study. Adolescents participating in our study were evaluated with the Conners' Parent Rating Scale-Revised: Short Form (CPRS-R:S), the Autism Spectrum Quotient-Adolescent Version (AQ-Adolescent), the 9-item Social Media Disorder Scale (SMD) and the UCLA Loneliness Scale Short Form (ULS-8). The SPSS 25.0 program was used in the analysis. p < 0.05 was accepted as the significance level.

It is found that adolescents diagnosed with ADHD had statistically significantly higher scores on the communication, social skill, imagination, attention switching subscales, and total score of the AQ-Adolescent compared to healthy controls. Moreover, adolescents diagnosed with ADHD obtained statistically significantly higher scores from the SMD and the ULS-8 compared to healthy controls. The ULS-8 showed a significant positive correlation with the AQ-Adolescent and the SMD in the ADHD group. It was also found that only loneliness may be associated with the risk of developing social media addiction in adolescents with ADHD.

The results of our study indicate that adolescents diagnosed with ADHD are susceptible to encountering challenges regarding social difficulties, feelings of loneliness, and social media addiction. It is believed that it may be essential to address these factors when dealing with social media addiction, which is prevalent among adolescents diagnosed with ADHD.