New research challenges the impact of social media on mental health

Not only does the research show that the amount of time spent on social media has a negligible effect on mental health indicators such as depression, anxiety and stress; the result is not always negative either.

Research leader and PhD candidate Chloe Jones said it was important to emphasize that the findings do not suggest that social media use is harmless or has no impact on mental health. However, the relationship between the two likely has many complex layers.

“For example, connecting to a supportive online community can be a lifeline for people living in isolation, but spending hours scrolling through Instagram influencers can be very unhelpful if you’re concerned about your body image,” says Jones.

While most previous studies of social media use relied on self-reported estimates from participants, researchers from the Curtin School of Population Health collected mobile phone data from more than 400 people aged 17 to 53 to accurately measure how much time they spend spent the past week on social media.

The team then compared the usage data to the participants’ levels of depression, anxiety, stress and attention control.

They found that social media use was very weakly associated with anxiety and not with depression or stress.

It was also found to have a weak positive association with attentional control, suggesting that increased social media use is associated with slightly better performance in sustaining attention.

“If we are to make informed decisions in this area they must be based on quality data and our research shows that when you objectively measure the time you spend on social media, the effects are small or even non-existent,” Ms Jones said. .

The supervising author, Associate Professor Patrick Clarke, said the study could be the starting point for future research into how users interact with social media and what personal characteristics may influence the effects of social media use on mental health, good and bad.

“While all associations were weak at best, the study found that different platforms registered different effects: using TikTok saw a small positive association with attention control, while using Facebook saw a small association with anxiety among users,” says University Senior Lecturer Clarke. said.

“We did take the age of the users into account – we thought TikTok users might just be younger and therefore have better attention control – but even when we took age into account, that association was still there.

“This study only looked at the amount of time participants spent on social media, so what this research could highlight is how long we spend on social media may be less important for mental health, as opposed to how we use it and interact with it.” to deal with. .”

“Research on the Links Between Objective Social Media Use, Attentional Control, and Psychological Problems” was published in Social sciences and medicine.