Participants and study design
Anxiety
In this study, 104 participants (85 females, 19 males) aged between 18 and 45 years (The participants were recruited at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. The study was conducted in a laboratory, individual setting. It has been approved by the ethics committee of the Department for Computer Science and Applied Cognitive Science at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. All the methods were performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. All participants gave written informed consent by signing a declaration of consent after they have been informed about the procedure. After the end of the study, the participants received further information about the study content and had the opportunity to ask questions. Students received credits points for participating.The study followed a between-within design with four experimental conditions (between-factor) and three measurement time points (within-factor). After instructions of the setting, the participants were asked to fill in the questionnaire assessing tendency towards a problematic use of social networks, which has been analyzed immediately. This score was used along with age and gender to pseudo-randomly assign the participants to one of the four groups to control for potential confounding variables (see Table Overview of the sample and group descriptions regarding age, gender, and tendency towards a problematic social-networks use including group comparisons.At t0, subjectively perceived stress was measured in all subjects using the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory. Participants in EG1, EG2, and CG1 subsequently underwent the stress induction followed by the second measurement of subjectively perceived stress (t1). They then recovered in one of three different conditions. Participants assigned to CG2 did not process the stress induction and began with the recovery phase directly after t0. After the recovery phase, the last measurement of subjectively perceived stress was done (t2) (see Fig. Study design. This figure shows the procedure of the study for the four different conditions. Participants of condition CG2 end up in the recovery phase directly after measurement of subjectively perceived stress (STAI time point 0), while subjects of condition EG1, EG2, CG1 must process the PASAT-C as stress induction after measurement of subjectively perceived stress (time point 0), stress perception (STAI time point 1) was assessed one more time and then are assigned to one of the three different conditions. For all participants there was an additional measurement of subjectively perceived stress (STAI time point 2) after the recovery condition. 