Penn's study links social media usage as a cause of depression and loneliness

We all know that social media has the power to make you sad if you allow it, but a new study from the University of Pennsylvania is the first to identify a causal link between time spent on social media and the Depression.

In fact, researchers found that in those who significantly reduced their social media, their mood improved and their vision of life was better.

The study, "No More FOMO: Limiting Social Media to Reduce Loneliness and Depression," is being published by the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Peer Review, published by Market Watch. To begin collecting data, researchers studied 143 undergraduate students at the University of Pennsylvania over two semesters. With the help of seven different established scales, the researchers tested the mood and feeling of well-being of the participants.

Half of the participants continued to normally use social media sites, while the other half was limited to ten minutes a day for each of the three most popular age group sites, including Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. To ensure the accuracy of this limitation, usage was tracked through regular screen shots of participants' phones displaying battery data.

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As expected, the results revealed that people who limited their use of social media found a "clinically significant" decrease in depression and loneliness during the study. However, members of the "control" group, who have not changed their behavior in social media, have found no improvement.

The results of this study are interesting because it is known that people tend to turn to social media when they feel lonely to make a connection, but that it can backfire, making them more depressed and more isolated. .

Senior researcher Melissa Hunt, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, offers two main theories explaining why social media makes people depressed and lonely: "The first is" the social comparison downward. "You read the timelines of your friends who deliberately set up a show to make their lives more beautiful, so you're more likely to think that your life is zero in comparison, says Hunt The second reason: FOMO or "Fear of Missing," Market Watch reports.

In this study, the researchers took a very reasonable approach to the use of social media: they asked participants to reduce their use instead of stopping it completely, which would be very difficult and probably unsuccessful in the modern world. "It is significant that limiting use to 10 minutes per site per day has helped a lot in people with depression. You do not have to give up everything to feel better, "says Hunt.

A slight limitation of the study is that it was limited to undergraduate students. That the use of social media affects older age groups is not clear yet. However, according to the researchers, many participants who started the study with moderate clinical depression found themselves a few weeks later, with very mild symptoms, which is definitely a success for the study.