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Is social media bad for you? The show and the unknowns

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What the science suggests then far about the impact of platforms such equally Facebook, Twitter or Instagram on your mental well-being.

#LikeMinded

A special series about social media and well-being

This month, BBC Future is exploring social media'due south impact on mental wellness and well-beingness – and seeking solutions for a happier, healthier experience on these platforms. Stay tuned for more stories, coming shortly…

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Three billion people, effectually 40% of the world's population, use online social media – and we're spending an average of ii hours every day sharing, liking, tweeting and updating on these platforms, according to some reports. That breaks down to around half a 1000000 tweets and Snapchat photos shared every infinitesimal.

With social media playing such a large part in our lives, could nosotros exist sacrificing our mental health and well-being as well as our time? What does the evidence actually suggest?

• Facebook responds to mental well-being claims

• Is it time to rethink how nosotros utilise social media? An introduction to our #LikeMinded season

Since social media is relatively new to us, conclusive findings are express. The research that does be mainly relies on self-reporting, which can ofttimes be flawed, and the bulk of studies focus on Facebook. That said, this is a fast-growing area of research, and clues are outset to emerge. BBC Future reviewed the findings of some of the scientific discipline and so far:

STRESS

People use social media to vent about everything from customer service to politics, but the downside to this is that our feeds often resemble an endless stream of stress. In 2015, researchers at the Pew Research Center based in Washington DC sought to notice out if social media induces more stress than information technology relieves.

In the survey of 1,800 people, women reported being more stressed than men. Twitter was establish to be a "significant contributor" because it increased their awareness of other people's stress.

Simply Twitter also acted equally a coping mechanism – and the more women used it, the less stressed they were. The same effect wasn't found for men, whom the researchers said had a more distant human relationship with social media. Overall, the researchers concluded that social media use was linked to "modestly lower levels" of stress.

The presence of a phone affects the quality of conversation, some studies propose (Credit: Getty Images)

MOOD

In 2014, researchers in Austria plant that participants reported lower moods after using Facebook for 20 minutes compared to those who only browsed the cyberspace. The written report suggested that people felt that mode because they saw it as a waste of time.

A good or bad mood may also spread between people on social media, according to researchers from the University of California, who assessed the emotional content of over a billion condition updates from more than 100 meg Facebook users between 2009 and 2012.

Bad conditions increased the number of negative posts past 1%, and the researchers found that one negative post by someone in a rainy city influenced another 1.three negative posts by friends living in dry out cities. The better news is that happy posts had a stronger influence; each one inspired 1.75 more happy posts. Whether a happy post translates to a 18-carat boost in mood, still, remains unclear.

ANXIETY

Researchers have looked at full general feet provoked by social media, characterised by feelings of restlessness and worry, and trouble sleeping and concentrating. A report published in the journal Computers and Human Behaviour found that people who report using seven or more than social media platforms were more than three times as likely as people using 0-ii platforms to take high levels of general anxiety symptoms.

That said, it'due south unclear if and how social media causes feet. Researchers from Babes-Bolyai Academy in Romania reviewed existing research on the relationship betwixt social feet and social networking in 2016, and said the results were mixed. They ended that more research needs to be done.

Social media mimics many of the rewards of games and play, which can pose an attractive lure (Credit: Getty Images)

DEPRESSION

While some studies have found a link betwixt depression and social media utilise, at that place is emerging research into how social media can really be a forcefulness for good.

Two studies involving more than 700 students found that depressive symptoms, such every bit depression mood and feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness, were linked to the quality of online interactions. Researchers found college levels of depressive symptoms among those who reported having more negative interactions.

A similar written report conducted in 2016 involving i,700 people found a threefold risk of depression and anxiety amid people who used the nigh social media platforms. Reasons for this, they suggested, include cyber-bullying, having a distorted view of other people'south lives, and feeling like time spent on social media is a waste.

All the same, as BBC Future will explore this month in our #LikeMinded season, scientists are likewise looking at how social media can exist used to diagnose depression, which could aid people receive treatment before. Researchers for Microsoft surveyed 476 people and analysed their Twitter profiles for depressive language, linguistic style, engagement and emotion. From this, they developed a classifier that can accurately predict depression before it causes symptoms in seven out of x cases.

Researchers from Harvard and Vermont Universities analysed 166 people'south Instagram photos to create a similar tool last yr with the same success rate.

SLEEP

Humans used to spend their evenings in darkness, but now we're surrounded by artificial lighting all day and night. Research has constitute that this tin inhibit the body's production of the hormone melatonin, which facilitates sleep – and blue calorie-free, which is emitted by smartphone and laptop screens, is said to exist the worst culprit. In other words, if you lie on the pillow at night checking Facebook and Twitter, you're headed for restless slumber.

Concluding year, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh asked 1,700 eighteen- to xxx-yr-olds about their social media and sleeping habits. They found a link with sleep disturbances – and concluded blue calorie-free had a function to play. How frequently they logged on, rather than time spent on social media sites, was a higher predictor of disturbed sleep, suggesting "an obsessive 'checking'", the researchers said.

The researchers say this could exist caused by physiological arousal earlier sleep, and the vivid lights of our devices can delay circadian rhythms. Simply they couldn't clarify whether social media causes disturbed sleep, or if those who have disturbed sleep spend more time on social media.

One of the worst times to use social media may be just before bed (Credit: Getty Images)

ADDICTION

Despite the argument from a few researchers that tweeting may be harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol, social media addiction isn't included in the latest diagnostic transmission for mental health disorders.

That said, social media is changing faster than scientists tin go along upward with, and so diverse groups are trying to study compulsive behaviours related to its apply – for case, scientists from the Netherlands accept invented their own scale to identify possible addiction.

And if social media addiction does exist, it would be a type of internet addiction – and that is a classified disorder. In 2011, Daria Kuss and Marker Griffiths from Nottingham Trent University in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland have analysed 43 previous studies on the matter, and conclude that social media addiction is a mental health trouble that "may" require professional person handling. They found that excessive usage was linked to relationship issues, worse academic achievement and less participation in offline communities, and establish that those who could be more than vulnerable to a social media addiction include those dependent on alcohol, the highly extroverted, and those who utilize social media to compensate for fewer ties in existent life.

SELF-ESTEEM

Women's magazines and their use of underweight and Photoshopped models take been long maligned for stirring self-esteem issues among young women. But now, social media, with its filters and lighting and clever angles, is taking over equally a primary concern amidst some campaigning groups and charities.

Social media sites brand more one-half of users feel inadequate, co-ordinate to a survey of 1,500 people by inability clemency Scope, and half of xviii- to 34-year-olds say it makes them feel unattractive.

A 2016 study past researchers at Penn State University suggested that viewing other people'south selfies lowered self-esteem, because users compare themselves to photos of people looking their happiest. Research from the University of Strathclyde, Ohio University and University of Iowa also found that women compare themselves negatively to selfies of other women.

Selfies may accept downsides for the viewer (Credit: Getty Images)

But it's not just selfies that have the potential to dent self-esteem. A report of one,000 Swedish Facebook users found that women who spent more fourth dimension on Facebook reported feeling less happy and confident. The researchers concluded: "When Facebook users compare their ain lives with others' seemingly more than successful careers and happy relationships, they may experience that their own lives are less successful in comparing."

Simply one small study hinted that viewing your own contour, not others, might offer ego boosts. Researchers at Cornell Academy in New York put 63 students into different groups. Some sat with a mirror placed against a computer screen, for example, while others sat in front of their ain Facebook profile.

Facebook had a positive effect on self-esteem compared to other activities that boost self-awareness. Mirrors and photos, the researchers explained, make u.s.a. compare ourselves to social standards, whereas looking at our own Facebook profiles might boost cocky-esteem considering information technology is easier to control how we're presented to the world.

WELL-BEING

In a written report from 2013, researchers texted 79 participants five times a 24-hour interval for fourteen days, asking them how they felt and how much they'd used Facebook since the concluding text. The more time people spent on the site, the worse they felt later on, and the more their life satisfaction declined over time.

Just other research has found, that for some people, social media tin help boost their well-being. Marketing researchers Jonah Berger and Eva Buechel constitute that people who are emotionally unstable are more likely to mail service about their emotions, which tin help them receive back up and bounce dorsum later on negative experiences.

Overall, social media'southward furnishings on well-being are ambiguous, according to a newspaper written final year by researchers from the Netherlands. Yet, they suggested at that place is clearer prove for the impact on one group of people: social media has a more negative result on the well-being of those who are more socially isolated.

In some cases, social media may enhance well-existence (Credit: Getty Images)

RELATIONSHIPS

If yous've always been talking to a friend who's pulled their phone out to scroll through Instagram, you lot might have wondered what social media is doing to relationships.

Even the mere presence of a phone tin can interfere with our interactions, peculiarly when we're talking about something meaningful, co-ordinate to one pocket-sized study. Researchers writing in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships tasked 34 pairs of strangers with having a 10-infinitesimal chat about an interesting event that had happened to them recently. Each pair sat in private booths, and half had a mobile phone on the top of their table.

Those with a phone in eyeshot were less positive when recalling their interaction afterwards, had less meaningful conversations and reported feeling less close to their partner than the others, who had a notebook on height of the tabular array instead.

Romantic relationships aren't immune, either. Researchers at the University of Guelph in Canada surveyed 300 people aged 17-24 in 2009 about whatever jealousy they felt when on Facebook, asking questions such equally, 'How likely are y'all to become jealous after your partner has added an unknown fellow member of the opposite sex?'.

Women spent much more time on Facebook so men, and experienced significantly more jealousy when doing then. The researchers concluded they "felt the Facebook surround created these feelings and enhanced concerns near the quality of their relationship".

In one survey of 1,800 people, women reported being more stressed by social media than men (Credit: Getty Images)

Envy

In a study involving 600 adults, roughly a third said social media fabricated them feel negative emotions – mainly frustration – and envy was the main cause. This was triggered by comparing their lives to others', and the biggest culprit was other people's travel photos. Feeling envious caused an "envy spiral", where people react to envy by calculation to their profiles more of the same sort of content that fabricated them jealous in the beginning place.

However, green-eyed isn't necessarily a destructive emotion – it can oft brand u.s. work harder, according to researchers from Michigan University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. They asked 380 students to look at "green-eyed-eliciting" photos and texts from Facebook and Twitter, including posts about buying expensive appurtenances, travelling and getting engaged. But the type of envy the researchers found is "benign envy", which they say is more likely to brand a person work harder.

LONELINESS

A study published in the American Periodical of Preventive Medicine last yr surveyed 7,000 19- to 32-yr-olds and found that those who spend the almost time on social media were twice as probable to study experiencing social isolation, which tin can include a lack of a sense of social belonging, engagement with others and fulfilling relationships.

Spending more than time on social media, the researchers said, could displace face-to-confront interaction, and tin can also make people feel excluded.

"Exposure to such highly idealised representations of peers' lives may elicit feelings of envy and the distorted belief that others pb happier and more successful lives, which may increase perceived social isolation."

CONCLUSIONS?

Information technology's articulate that in many areas, not enough is known yet to draw many stiff conclusions. However, the evidence does point 1 way: social media affects people differently, depending on pre-existing atmospheric condition and personality traits.

As with food, gambling and many other temptations of the modern age, excessive use for some individuals is probably inadvisable. But at the same fourth dimension, information technology would be wrong to say social media is a universally bad thing, because clearly it brings myriad benefits to our lives.

Nosotros'll exist exploring this tension more than over the next month, in a series of articles and videos in our special serial #LikeMinded – and hopefully providing solutions that could help united states of america all live a happier, healthier digital life.

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Source: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180104-is-social-media-bad-for-you-the-evidence-and-the-unknowns

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