According to a new national study, young adults who have increased their use of social media were significantly more likely to develop depression within six months.
The studyv has been authored by Dr. Brian Primack, dean of the College of Education and Health Professions and professor of public health at the University of Arkansas. Compared with participants who used less than 120 minutes per day of social media, for example, young adults who used more than 300 minutes per day were 2.8 times as likely to become depressed within six months, found the study.
The study, is going to be published online on December 10 for the February 2021 issue of the American Journal of medicine. It is the first large, national study to show a link between social media use and depression over time. “Most prior add this area has left us with the chicken-and-egg question,” said Primack.
“We know from other large studies that depression and social media use tend to travel together, but it has been hard to work out which came first. This new study sheds light on these questions, because high initial social media use led to increased rates of depression. However, initial depression didn’t cause any change in social media use,” added Primack.
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In 2018, Primack and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh sampled quite 1,000 U.S. adults between 18 to 30. They measured depression using the validated nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire and asked participants about the quantity of your time they used social media on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, and SnapChat.
Their analyses controlled for demographic factors like age, sex, race, education, income and employment, and that they included survey weights therefore the results would reflect the greater U.S. population. “One reason for these findings could also be that social media takes up tons of your time ,” said Dr. Cesar Escobar-Viera, professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and co-author on the study.
“Excess time on social media may displace forming more important in-person relationships, achieving personal or professional goals, or even simply having moments of valuable reflection,” added Escobar-Viera.
The authors suggest that social comparison can also underlie these findings. “Social media is usually curated to emphasize positive portrayals,” said Jaime Sidani, professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and co-author of the study.
“This are often especially difficult for young adults who are at critical junctures in life associated with identity development and feel that they can not qualify to the impossible ideals they are exposed to,” Sidani added.
The findings are of particular importance as the depression was declared to be the leading global explanation for disability by the World Health Organization. It accounts for more disability-adjusted life years than all other mental disorders.
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“These findings also are particularly important to think about within the age of COVID-19,” Primack said. “Now that it’s harder to attach socially face to face , we’re all using more technology like social media. While i feel those technologies certainly are often valuable, I’d also encourage people to reflect on which tech experiences are truly useful for them and which of them leave them feeling empty,” added Primack
“We know from other large studies that depression and social media use tend to go together, but it’s been hard to figure out which came first. This new study sheds light on these questions, because high initial social media use led to increased rates of depression. However, initial depression did not lead to any change in social media use,” added Primack.
