Mental health symptoms and everyday social interaction among university students: an exploratory intensive longitudinal study of relational events within bounded peer networks.
Mental health symptoms were more consistently associated with received emotional support than with general face-to-face contact, with anxiety positively associated and depressive and ADHD symptoms negatively associated with receiving emotional support among university students.
Key Findings
Results
Anxiety symptoms showed a positive association with receiving emotional support in both cohorts studied.
The association was observed across both the bachelor and master academic cohorts
This suggests students with higher anxiety symptoms were more likely to receive emotional support from peers during the seven-day study period
The finding held across two distinct bounded peer network contexts
Dynamic Network Actor Models were used to estimate these associations separately for each cohort
Results
Depressive symptoms were negatively associated with receiving emotional support in the bachelor cohort.
The negative association was specific to the bachelor cohort and was not reported as consistent across both cohorts
This suggests that students with higher depressive symptoms received less emotional support from peers
The finding contrasts with the pattern observed for anxiety symptoms
Dynamic Network Actor Models were used to model received emotional support as a directed event process
Results
ADHD symptoms were negatively associated with receiving emotional support in both cohorts.
Unlike depressive symptoms, the negative association for ADHD was consistent across both bachelor and master cohorts
This suggests students with higher ADHD symptoms were less likely to receive emotional support from peers
ADHD symptoms showed the most consistent negative pattern of the three symptom types examined
Received emotional support was modelled as a directed event process using Dynamic Network Actor Models
Results
Face-to-face contact showed little evidence of overall involvement differences by mental health symptom level.
General social exposure (face-to-face contact lasting at least five minutes) was more strongly associated with prior interaction history and opportunity structures than with symptom levels
Face-to-face contact was modelled as an undirected coordination process
This contrasts with the stronger associations found for received emotional support
The finding suggests that symptom levels do not substantially alter general social exposure within bounded peer networks
Methods
The study used an intensive longitudinal design combining ecological momentary assessment with sociometric measurement across a seven-day period.
Thirty-eight university students from two bounded academic cohorts participated
Participants completed three smartphone-based survey prompts per day over seven days, contributing 657 short surveys in total
At each prompt, participants reported face-to-face contacts lasting at least five minutes and received emotional support since the previous survey
Baseline mental health measures were collected prior to the assessment period
Dynamic Network Actor Models were estimated separately for each cohort given the small-scale, exploratory design
Discussion
Mental health symptoms were not uniformly associated with everyday social interaction, with symptom levels most relevant for emotionally meaningful support exchanges rather than general contact.
The study distinguished general social contact from support-related interaction, finding differential associations by interaction type
The analyses were intended to model micro-level interaction processes within bounded peer contexts rather than to estimate population-level associations
The authors characterize these as preliminary findings given the exploratory and small-scale design
The findings suggest that student mental health interventions should attend to the concrete contexts in which support is mobilized or missed, not only to social connectedness broadly
What This Means
This research suggests that the relationship between mental health symptoms and daily social life among university students is more nuanced than simply being more or less socially active. Using a week-long smartphone-based study with 38 students, researchers tracked moment-to-moment social interactions — specifically brief face-to-face conversations and instances of receiving emotional support from peers. They found that having higher levels of anxiety, depression, or ADHD symptoms did not substantially change how much general social contact students had day-to-day. Instead, mental health symptoms were most strongly linked to whether students received emotional support from peers.
The direction of these associations differed by symptom type in interesting ways. Students reporting higher anxiety were more likely to receive emotional support from peers, possibly reflecting active help-seeking. In contrast, students with higher levels of depressive or ADHD symptoms were less likely to receive emotional support — suggesting these groups may be at risk of going without meaningful peer support even while still participating in general social contact. This distinction matters because simply being around others does not guarantee access to emotionally meaningful connection.
This research suggests that university mental health programs should look beyond promoting general socializing and instead focus on the specific conditions that allow students — particularly those with depression or ADHD symptoms — to access peer support when they need it. Because the study was small and exploratory, the findings should be considered preliminary, but they point to the value of studying social life as it unfolds in real time rather than relying on broad measures of social connectedness.
Krüger H. (2026). Mental health symptoms and everyday social interaction among university students: an exploratory intensive longitudinal study of relational events within bounded peer networks.. BMC psychology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-026-05805-7