What do people use dating apps for if not to date?
Gaining support in times of illness is one way the mind and body automatically promote healing.
Many people assume that social media is partly to blame for worsening mental health among young people — but is it really?
Reducing loneliness and depression could be as simple as this…
Reducing loneliness and depression could be as simple as this…
Limiting social media to 30 minutes per day decreases feelings of loneliness and depression, research finds.
The study strongly suggests that excessive social media use makes people more depressed and lonely.
It is also ironic that less ‘social’ media use reduces feelings of loneliness.
For the study, 143 college students were tracked for three weeks.
Half were told to use social media as normal, while the other half were instructed to limit it to 30 minutes per day.
All reported their use of Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram along with feelings of anxiety, depression, loneliness and fear of missing out.
Dr Melissa G. Hunt, the study’s first author, explained the results:
“Here’s the bottom line.
Using less social media than you normally would leads to significant decreases in both depression and loneliness.
These effects are particularly pronounced for folks who were more depressed when they came into the study.”
Dr Hunt does not think young people should stop using social media all together.
Limiting screen time, though, seems sensible, she says:
“It is a little ironic that reducing your use of social media actually makes you feel less lonely.
Some of the existing literature on social media suggests there’s an enormous amount of social comparison that happens.
When you look at other people’s lives, particularly on Instagram, it’s easy to conclude that everyone else’s life is cooler or better than yours.”
Dr Hunt concluded:
“When you’re not busy getting sucked into clickbait social media, you’re actually spending more time on things that are more likely to make you feel better about your life.
In general, I would say, put your phone down and be with the people in your life.”
The study was published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology (Hunt et al., 2018).
One of the drivers of unhappiness caused by social media is thought to be social comparisons.
Study participants felt improvements after just two weeks, along with reduced ‘fear of missing out’ and more positive emotions.
TikTok, which has over 1 billion users worldwide, is a Chinese app that allows users to record and watch short videos.
Afterwards, young people felt better about their overall appearance and body weight.
Women’s natural assertiveness is revealed online.
“61% of current Facebook users reported having taken a Facebook vacation”
“61% of current Facebook users reported having taken a Facebook vacation”
Giving up Facebook for 5 days is linked to lower levels of the ‘stress hormone’ cortisol, research finds.
This suggests there could be benefits in taking a ‘Facebook holiday’.
That wouldn’t be unusual among Facebook users, according to research quoted by the authors:
“61% of current Facebook users reported having taken a “Facebook vacation,” in which they voluntarily stopped using Facebook for several weeks or more.
Moreover, 20% of adults reported once using Facebook but no longer did so.
Excessive use of Facebook appears to be too much of a good thing.”
The study included 138 active Facebook users.
Almost half were randomly told to quit for five days, while the rest carried on using it as normal.
The researchers measured their cortisol levels, loneliness, life satisfaction, mood and stress.
After the five days, the people who quit Facebook had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
The study’s authors explain the results:
“Relative to those in the Facebook Normal condition, those in the No Facebook condition experienced lower levels of cortisol and life satisfaction.
Our results suggest that the typical Facebook user may occasionally find the large amount of social information available taxing, and Facebook vacations could ameliorate this stress — at least in the short-term.”
However, Facebook quitters also saw a drop in their life satisfaction.
People reported being happy when the study was over so they could get back to Facebook.
This suggests that while Facebook can be stressful, people are deriving pleasure from it.
The study’s authors conclude:
…these effects are consistent with the general ambivalent feelings that may typify most active users about Facebook.
It has become an essential social tool for millions of users and it obviously provides many benefits.
Yet, perhaps because it conveys so much social information about a large network of people, it can also be taxing, which is why the occasional Facebook break may happen naturally.
The study was published in the Journal of Social Psychology (Vanman et al., 2018).
Join the free PsyBlog mailing list. No spam, ever.
