ANTISOCIAL MEDIA
CONSTANTLY scrolling on your phone could lead to depression, experts have warned.
A study found people who spend five hours a day on social media are three times more likely to suffer depression than those who spend less than two hours per day.
1
More than 1,000 young American adults took part in the research, which tracked how many developed depression symptoms over six months.
The experts believe obsessions with platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, SnapChat and Facebook are stopping from young people forming friendships.
Addiction to social media may also be de-motivating youngsters to go and achieve goals in their career, fuelling negative emotions.
Teens are also thought to be comparing themselves to a "photoshopped" perfect lifestyle that is impossible to obtain and they feel worthless in comparison, the study found.
"The chicken-and-egg question"
The large study, published today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, is the first of its kind to make a link between social media and depression.
Lead author Dr Brian Primack, professor of public health at the University of Arkansas, said: "Most prior work in this area has left us with the chicken-and-egg question.
"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."
The research team asked the study participants how often they used social media, and compared it with their scores on an extensive quiz that measures depression.
Of the 1,289 individuals in the final sample, 299 were already depressed at baseline, and were tracked to see if this affected their social media use.
Over the six month follow-up period, 95 more participants developed depressive symptoms.
Young adults who used social media more than five hours per day were 2.8 times more likely to become depressed within six months than those who used it less than two hours per day.
Although the researchers are confident in the link discovered, the study cannot prove cause and affect - that social media, and not another factor, is triggering depression.
Dr Cesar Escobar-Viera, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, said: "One reason for these findings may be that social media takes up a lot of time.
"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."
How to cut back on social media use
SOCIAL media expert Jodie Cook says: “For most millennials, social media emerged at the perfect time, as they were growing up. It was an exciting new way to communicate.
“The novelty of that has started to wear off, producing more of a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude. Plus much of the noise we hear about social media today is negative – concerns about too much screen time, links to mental health issues, online bullying and shortening attention spans.
“This means it is less appealing to people who haven’t yet used it.”
Here are tips to cut down your social media use:
- GET A WATCH: The No1 reason people look at their phones is to check the time. This leads to seeing notifications and then to a few minutes of scrolling here and there, which can amount to hours every day.
- SET A CUT-OFF TIME: In the evening, give yourself a phone deadline and keep it away from you from this time until the next day.
- GET AN APP: Use time-limiting apps that tell you when you have spent 30 minutes on Instagram in a day, for example, so that you are aware of the level of your usage. Or simply use the phone’s screen-time monitor.
The authors suggest that comparison may also underlie these findings, with social media feeds often filled with celebrities' glamourous lives.
Co-author Dr Jaime Sidani, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, added: "Social media is often curated to emphasise positive portrayals.
"This can be especially difficult for young adults who are at critical junctures in life related to identity development and feel that they can't measure up to the impossible ideals they are exposed to."
A losing battle
Depression has increased in prevalence over the years, studies show.
Around one in six people are suffering common mental illness in any given week in England, according to the leading charity MIND.
Dr Primack fears the Covid-19 pandemic will only see an increase in use and worsening mental health problems.
He said: "Now that it's harder to connect socially in person, we're all using more technology like social media.
"While I think those technologies certainly can be valuable, I'd also encourage people to reflect on which tech experiences are truly useful for them and which ones leave them feeling empty."
Most read in Health News
Levels of depression had increased from nine per cent for young people born in the early 1990s to almost 15 per cent for those born at the turn of the millennium, previous research has found.
An NHS survey, conducted in 2004, found that 1 in 10 children aged 5-15 had a mental health disorder (either emotional, behavioural, hyperactive, or other).
In 2017, this rose to one in nine.
When older teens up to 19 years of age were included, figures rose to 1 in 8 young people had at least one mental disorder.
Read More on The Sun
The amount of people with common mental health problems went up by 20 per cent in just two decades, between 1993 and 2014, according to MIND.
The mental health charity also reports "a clear increase in the number of men and the number of people under 25 taking their own life" since 2018.
Where to get help
If you, or anyone you know, needs help dealing with mental health problems, the following organisations provide support:
- CALM,, 0800 585 858
- Heads Together,
- Mind,, 0300 123 3393
- Papyrus,, 0800 068 41 41
- Samaritans,, 116 123
Topics