According to Dr. Brian Primack, dean of the College of Education and Health Professions and professor of public health at the University of Arkansas, youngsters in early adulthood, if used too much of social media then they are likely to develop depression within six months.
A comparison was made between the people using social media for less than 120 minutes and people using it for more than 300 minutes. People with more use of social media showed 2.8 times more prone to depression in six months.
“Most prior work in this area has left us with the chicken-and-egg question,” said Primack. “We know from other large studies that depression and social media users 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.”
In 2018 survey, Primack and his colleagues, at the University of Pittsburgh, sampled more than 1,000 U.S. adults between the age of 18 to 30. They used the validated nine-item patient health questionnaire and asked them about the time they spent on social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit.
“One reason for these findings may be that social media takes up a lot of time,” said Dr. Cesar Escobar-Viera, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and co-author on the study. “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.”
“Social media is often curated to emphasize positive portrayals,” said Jaime Sidani, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and co-author of the study. “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.”
These findings are very important regarding depression because recently WHO(world health organization) declared it as a leading global cause of disability.
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