Social media attacks linked to depression in Pitt study
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Rampant and increasing online interactions among young people have researchers questioning what effects social media experiences are having on mental health problems such as depression.
A University of Pittsburgh study, based on a survey of 1,179 West Virginia University students ages 18-30, found a strong relationship between negative social media experiences and higher depressive symptoms.
The study published Thursday in the journal Depression and Anxiety also showed a weak and potentially nonexistent association between positive social media experiences and lower levels of depression, said Brian Primack, lead author of the study and director of Pitt’s Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health.
Dr. Primack cited “flaming” online fights, mean posts and being “unfriended” as examples of negative social media experiences. Nice comments on pictures and “friend requests” from old companions were positive experiences.
“We thought that having lots of
positive social media experiences would be quite protective against depression,” he said.
That is why the most surprising finding of the study is that positive social media experiences were only weakly associated, if associated at all, with lower depressive symptoms.
The issue is drawing attention at a time when 45 percent of American teens are saying they’re online almost constantly, marking a dramatic increase from the 24 percent in the 2014-15 survey, according to the 2018 Pew Research Center report.
Dr. Primack said he decided to conduct this study after years of research relating overall social media use and depression — research that seems to be making its way into the public eye.
Out of 264 participants in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Twitter survey conducted this week, 72 percent thought heavy social media use and feeling depressed were correlated, 19 percent said there was no correlation, and 9 percent said they were unsure.
“However, all social media use is not the same,” Dr. Primack said.
David Bickham, a pediatrics instructor at Boston Children’s Hospital’s Center on Media and Child Health, who was not involved in the study, said it “starts to identify that there are different types of online interactions, and that those types of interactions are likely to have very different outcomes in terms of depression.”
The study, he said, doesn’t explain what makes a positive versus negative social media interaction because it allowed participants to self-determine what was positive and negative. Specifically defining these types of encounters “is a very important next step” in identifying what they look like and what effects they have.
In an email response, psychologist Jean Twenge said the study is well-constructed and takes a crucial step in answering the question of why time spent on social media is linked to depression when it’s supposed to connect people.
She is the author of the book “iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood.” The study results, she said, help explain “why time spent on social media is not the best for mental health.”
The Pitt study surveyed students about their social media experiences and levels of depression, drawing relations between the two through statistical analysis. Dr. Primack and his team analyzed the online experiences by directly asking participants to estimate what percentage of their interactions involved positive and negative encounters.
Depression levels were analyzed using the already established PROMIS depression scale, which asks participants how frequently they felt hopeless, worthless, helpless and depressed in the past seven days, generating a depression score.
Each 10 percent increase in positive experiences was associated with a 4 percent decrease in the odds of depressive symptoms, which the study found not to be statistically significant, while each 10 percent increase in negative experiences was associated with a 20 percent increase in the odds of depressive symptoms, Dr. Primack said.
He said it’s important to recognize that the study used a specific population of university students, so results cannot be generalized to other parts of the country or other age groups. The study also cannot confirm whether negative social media experiences cause depression or whether those who are more depressed have a greater number of negative social media experiences.
The answer likely involves some combination of both.
“Ultimately, we want to come up with a set of evidence-based best practices for people to follow in order to minimize their risk of having mental health problems related to social media,” said Dr. Primack, noting plans for future studies on the relationship between positive and negative social media experiences and anxiety, social isolation and sleep deprivation.
He said he hopes these recommendations will help guide social media users about how to maximize mental health while online.
The results of this study don’t apply to everyone in the world; they are tendencies, he said, encouraging people who read the study to reflect on their own experiences on social media to see if the results resonate with them.
Those who relate, he said, “may want to consider ways to minimize their exposure to negative social media experiences and maximize resilience to these experiences.”