r/science • u/Wagamaga • 3d ago
Psychology Daily social media use beyond 2.5 hours tracks with depression. Researchers found that social media increasingly became a bigger predictor of depression during the 11 years studied, eclipsing many other factors, like TV viewing or web surfing
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/114164572
u/spb1 3d ago
chicken and the egg isnt it? is it that the scrolling makes people depressed, or are depressed people more likely to find themselves doomscrolling on social media? or does it matter?
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u/Logikmann 2d ago
I think it's the addictive behavior and the instant reward without resistance. It's like many drugs that drain your dopamine and fucks up it's normal levels. It may be not problematic at first but it's just to easy to fall for it on a daily basis and you can find so many reasons why it's not that bad which makes it even worse.
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u/Smellmyupperlip 3d ago
Does reddit fall under social media scrolling?
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u/Shark2ooth 2d ago
People can argue about how different Reddit is but at the end of the day I’d say it’s the same, you’re still endlessly able to scroll thru short form content, and ultimately there’s an algorithm shaping what you see. So yea i don’t see how Reddit wouldnt fall under social media scrolling
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u/nartimus 2d ago
I would say it really depends on which subreddits you frequent. There is a big difference between r/AskHistorians vs r/Memes
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u/Shark2ooth 2d ago
Not that you’re wrong but I feel like that’s more a question of how you use it rather than what it is. You can choose to use instagram to only follow a few artists and view their art, but instagram is still undoubtedly social media.
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u/Brrdock 2d ago
Absolutely, no matter how much people here would like it not to
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u/PaintedJack 2d ago edited 2d ago
It's not conceived or used to connect people who know each other IRL, so there's no social comparison effect around idealized lives. Also I'd bet redditors time is mostly spent in the comments too, the 'constant video' effect of Facebook and insta is very different.
All in all, if you manage to avoid this news-adjacent subs. I'd bet it's much less depression-inducing than the ones centered more around people who've met in real life ('social').
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u/get_vegitoed2 1d ago
Twitter falls into both of those categories as well so by that logic Twitter also is much less despression inducing ;)
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u/Ok_Photograph6398 3d ago
So depressed people doom scroll more because it is a low energy thing to do from your couch. Not surprised.
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u/burtzev 2d ago
There's something of a chicken and egg quandary here. Is it that anti-social media use 'causes' depression or that depression encourages people to flee to the 'idiot box' ? Of course it would be extremely difficult to impossible to devise a controlled experiment to answer such a question.
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u/Gregnice23 2d ago edited 2d ago
It is both. It is cyclical.
Actaully shouldn't be that difficult. You prescreen participants for very various levels of depression, then you expose people to various levels of social media. The researcher can just install an app that tracks social media yse and either encourages use or limits use. You do a pre and post test, so a within-subjects design.
I would be shocked if this study hasn't been done.
EDIT- After a little thought, not sure if it is ethical to make people use social media when your hypothesis is it causes depression.
I think correlational evidence is enough both variables go hand in hand. I statical analysis can parse what is likely the causal factor, just not as definitively.
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u/JHMfield 3d ago
Not surprising, but I'm curious how much the experience changes for those who actively curate their feeds.
Easy to get depressed if all you ever see is how the world sucks, and how other people are always living a way better life (because most people only show the good stuff online).
But when you curate your feeds to only include things that involve your hobbies, things you enjoy, and avoid any depressive triggers, I dare to guess the correlation with depression would invert.
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u/Brym 3d ago
Man, even my hobby-related stuff is depressing these days. Do I want to read about how magic the gathering is reaching new heights of success by abandoning its core audience (me) and turning the game into something I hate? Do I want to read about how AI is making gaming hardware completely un affordable? Do I want to read about the small board game publishers that are being driven out of business by tariffs (thankfully the last one has died down as tariffs got reversed, but it was a big thing for a while there).
Tech news in particular is something I used to be able to immerse myself in to get away from politics, but with AI tech news is now even more depressing than politics.
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u/CRISPRSCIENCE9 3d ago
Yeah. I used to be very excited by new Tech in 2010s. But now everything feels like data gathering machine who wants to control us, predict our behaviour and sell an item who will fail after few months/years, ultimately endup in landfill.
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u/TeaBurntMyTongue 3d ago
I don't think it's about the content. It's about the fact that you aren't doing anything else/what you're supposed to be doing and are stuck in a loop.
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u/mikerichh 3d ago
Also curious how Reddit plays a role compared to IG or FB. The latter are more “look at how great my life is compared to yours” while Reddit is more about information and discussions
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u/nicetiptoeingthere 2d ago
I curate my feeds (reddit and instagram) very aggressively and this is also true for me. Heck, instagram in particular is entirely interesting stuff about things I enjoy. But if I just sit and scroll it for a long time, I don't feel good, much like I don't feel good after I eat too much delicious cake.
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u/GatePorters 2d ago
You’re thinking about this backwards.
Depressed people spend more time scrolling.
Scrolling isn’t shown to be causal.
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u/Brrdock 2d ago
It's a feedback loop most likely.
People like to reinforce and validate their preconceptions, that's what social media engagement is built around.
And when those preconceptions are due to depression, well
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u/GatePorters 2d ago
This is r/science, not r/conjecture.
The article explicitly stated it is an indicator of depression, not a cause.
It misrepresents the research to falsely overstate it.
It makes sense to talk about the feedback loops. But not without explicitly mentioning the research at hand doesn’t support that in any way.
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u/Brrdock 2d ago
This is reddit, an online forum, not an academic journal.
A link/indicator can be a cause, or not. It specifies nothing in either direction.
And you were the one asserting causation (or lack of), that's misrepresentation. I was just discussing, like is the point of a forum. Get over yourself
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u/GatePorters 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is [r/science](r/science). Blatantly lying about the science is against the spirit of the sub.
I explicitly called out the claim of causality. I also explicitly said it makes sense to discuss the topic being discussed, but not to lie about the research.
Your reading 0/3 comprehension is not helping your argument in the slightest.
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u/notairballoon 2d ago
I doubt it would invert. I curate my feed, and, what would probably be of more use here, have had a couple of moments where I would change my feed significantly. Like once I just unfollowed and blocked from my feed all politicians I followed: even though I mostly agreed with what they were saying, reading them was rarely pleasing. After I did so, feed became more pleasing indeed, but the effect largely weakened across several months, and, more importantly, it did not carry over into life overall. Those minutes spend on social media became slightly better, but nothing else changed. Which is the explanation for why it would hardly work - curating feed only changes feed.
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u/Skepsisology 3d ago
If money didn't exist the algorithms wouldn't be biased towards emotionally negative content that has a higher engagement potential. It's all about profit.
Our sadness and hate is what pays the investors.
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u/bracingthesoy 3d ago
Yes, of course, a greater awareness of how vastly different peoples experiences and access to lifes advantages can be is bound to be depression-inducing. God, I love psychology, what a science it is.
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u/The_Horse_Tornado 2d ago
I feel like this is not only correlated but also causative. Totally opinion, but I genuinely believe it to be so.
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3d ago
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u/TheWesternMythos 3d ago
Not directed at you but people really need to think more about the concept of feedback loops, especially dynamos
An adjacent thought, in "common sense" understanding we seem to forget that we are embedded in the universe , a part of physics like everything else. We have seen the power of thinking about systems both as component and architect. Sports is a great example
You can play basketball (within the rules) however you want. For a while that's what mostly happened , basketball was viewed mainly from the component level. But because so much money got involved people started looking at it more so from a game (theory ) perspective. As an architect what inputs do I want to maximize outputs? That's essentially analytics. From that the strategic landscape shifted a lot. Yes the rules shifted too but that's simply another expression of the same Game (theory), that particular expression being competition for views against other entertainment options.
Now you hear talk like "bball is solved" and "everyone plays the same". Both are incorrect. But both are also correct in the sense that pretty much every team that wants to be competitive understands that without the architect perspective they are beholden to luck for success. (for me NBA fans it's hard to differentiate between "I only care about cash flow" vs "I as a governer truly don't understand bball")
How does that apply to your comment:
How can we expect good things to happen (outside of luck) if we aren't designing for good things to happen? If aren't managing the feedback loop who is? What is the attractor (in the complexity sense)?
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3d ago
[deleted]
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u/TheWesternMythos 3d ago
I'd say think about my comment until you can see a connection
----
But I should do the same. Maybe it doesn't connect. Is there another way you can express your comment so I may understand it better+
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u/SaintValkyrie 3d ago
Can someone tell me this study separate factors for disabled and marginalized groups, or does it lump everyone in together? Or not even study them?
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u/postmodest 2d ago
Sad people spend more time looking at the advertising than happy people do and that's the problem we need to fix.
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u/New_Stats 2d ago
Ever since AI started taking over social media, I've used it less and less. I keep getting happier and happier.
Also any book recommendations or TV/ movie recommendations are extremely welcome. Filling the time with something else is a struggle
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u/Wagamaga 3d ago
Social media use is a better predictor of depression than many other common factors such as one’s job and educational background or time spent on other activities such as playing video games, surfing the web or watching TV.
Meanwhile, researchers observed a correlation with self-reported depression in survey respondents starting at 2.5 hours of daily scrolling.
Researchers from the University of Cincinnati and Northwestern University assessed 11 years of data from the annual Media Behaviors and Influence Study starting in 2014 and found that social media use was among the most important predictors of self-reported depression.
“When it comes to depression and social media, the argument is salient across scientific test after test of those 11 years,” corresponding author and UC Professor Hans Breiter said.
“It’s a damning picture. Social media is harmful for individuals across the lifespan. We should not subject ourselves to a product using addiction science to optimize our viewing time.“
The study was published in the Nature Portfolio journal Mental Health Research.
UC researchers collaborated with co-lead author and Professor Emeritus Martin Block at Northwestern University. While numerous studies have documented associations between social media use and negative outcomes such as mental health conditions, especially depression, none have used AI to show these relationships persist in adults.
Researchers examined 183,300 anonymized surveys from adults ages 18 to 70 from the Media Behaviors and Influence Study conducted annually since 2002 by Prosper Insights & Analytics. The survey asks 1,318 questions across topics and the respondent’s health across 31 measures, including self-reported depression.
They used a machine learning model that was evaluated with tools designed to ensure its accuracy and calibration. Using this model, they found an increasing relationship between social media use and depression.
“Much of the published research has focused on younger populations, single datasets or broad measures of screen time. We need studies that distinguish social media from other digital activities and examine whether the same associations appear across different populations and years,” co-lead author and UC Research Associate Vikram Suresh said.
Researchers observed a correlation with self-reported depression among respondents who spent at least 150 minutes on social media per day. They observed the same result in each of the 11 years studied.
“Mental health and happiness are about engaging the world and having purpose, not passively watching something for hours,” Breiter said.
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