Credit author statement Xue-Chen Zhang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Xiao-Wei Chu: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Cui-Ying Fan: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, acquisition, Writing – review & editing. Frank Andrasik: Methodology, Writing – review & editing. Hui-Fen Shi: Methodology, Writing – review & editing. Xiang-En Hu: acquisition, details This work was supported by the Research Program Funds from National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant Number 61937001], Research Program Funds of the Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University [Grant Number 2021-04-009-BZPK01], Opening Research Program Funds of Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior (CCNU), Ministry of Education: The Research of Mechanism of Internet Use on adolescents’ mental health