The Impact of Bullying Victimization on Short Video Addiction in Adolescents: The Role of Emotional Distress and Neural Mechanisms

Short-video addiction (SVA) has become a growing concern among adolescents. Bullying victimization (BV) is considered a significant factor contributing to it, yet its relationship with SVA remains underexplored. This study investigated the role of BV in SVA, examining developmental and psychological pathways across middle school students (MSS; n = 1269), college students (CS; n = 1615) and a replicated college sample (RCS; n = 112). Descriptive statistics revealed significant correlations between SVA and BV, including subdimensions such as verbal, physical and relational bullying, as well as negative affect (NA). Mediation analyses showed that NA partially mediated the relationship between BV and SVA across both MSS and CS groups, although mediation effects were absent in addicted subgroups, highlighting differing psychological pathways between addicted and nonaddicted populations. Neuroimaging analyses in the RCS sample identified spontaneous functional brain activity linked to SVA in the inferior temporal gyrus (ITG) and parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), with intersubject representational similarity analyses (IS-RSA) further associating PHG and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) activity patterns with intersubject variations in SVA. These findings underscore bullying victimization as a critical predictor of short video addiction, mediated by NA in nonaddicted groups, and illuminate spontaneous brain activity patterns associated with addiction.