Cognitive Performance in the relation between Digital Use and Subjective Wellbeing

The incredible convenience that digital devices offer is suspected to come at a high cost. Researchers have been trying to find out, how the use of digital devices and addictive tendencies affect our health and brains. They found evidence that the dependence on digital devices negatively affects our physical and mental wellbeing, as well as our cognitive skills. To further investigate these relations, this paper analyses the mediating effect of Cognitive Performance in the relation between Digital Use and Subjective Wellbeing. The method applied is a Mediation Model in Structural Equation Modelling, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel on young adults in 2016 and 2017. The variable Digital Use is measured as time spent on social networks and other surfing on the internet. Cognitive Performance is a latent construct with the indicators Concentration, Efficiency, Thoroughness, Diligence, and Ambition. The results of the analysis are mostly insignificant, which means that no mediating effect is found with the data at hand. As the insignificance might be caused by a gap between the theoretical concept and the available data, the measurability of addictive Digital Use is discussed.