Author: Matthew Davis / Source: Big Think
- Prior research has shown that social media usage can negatively impact our mental health, but until now, very few studies have shown this experimentally.
- A study from the University of Pennsylvania asked study participants to limit their social media usage so their resulting mental health could be measured.
- The results tell us how to regulate our social media usage to improve our well-being.
In 2008, American adults used their mobile phones for about a half hour a day. Nearly a decade later, that number jumped up to 3.3 hours per day. To be fair, a 2008 mobile phone wouldn’t hold a candle to the miniature computers we keep in our pockets, but still, the amount of time we devote to our smartphones begs the questions: What is our obsession with smartphones doing to us?
Researchers have been hard at work trying to answer this question. There has been a considerable amount of prior research that’s shown that frequent Facebook and Instagram users self-report higher symptoms of depression, lower self-esteem, and greater body image issues. The trouble with these studies is that they are correlational—they don’t actually say whether social media and smartphone usage cause these undesirable feelings, just that the two are related.
Mobile phone usage over time.
That’s where Melissa G. Hunt’s study comes in. Published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Hunt’s study examined the impact of intentionally reducing social media usage in one of the first experimental studies of its kind.
In an interview with the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Today, Hunt explained that they had “set out to do a much more comprehensive, rigorous study that was also more ecologically valid.” Their study would examine actual usage based on the iPhone’s built-in app monitoring and examine what happens to smartphone users when they reduce their social media intake, enabling them to make claims about what effect social media causes in its users
Cutting down on social media
Hunt and her team recruited 143 undergraduate students to monitor their social media usage, specifically Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. The study participants were also given a survey designed to measure a number of psychological characteristics like depression, anxiety, the fear of missing out (i.e., worrying about all the fun your peers are having without you), social support, loneliness, self-esteem, and autonomy and self-acceptance.
Students took this survey before the experiment began to establish a baseline and then several times again over the ensuing three weeks. During this time, students were either instructed to continue using social media…
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