Study Finds Clear Link Between Social Media And Depression
By Phillip Schneider
ActivistPost.com
MAY 13, 2016
In a world filled to the brim with likes, posts, and status updates, where the average teenage youth spends a whopping 9 hours a day with some form of media, it almost seems as though Facebook and Twitter are becoming a sub-reality of their own. Plug in and tune out could be the mantra of our coming generation, but is that a good thing? New research from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine reveals a link between social media and depression amongst young adults.
The study began in 2014, when Dr. Brian Primack and his colleagues used questionnaires to sample 1,787 U.S. adults aged 19 through 32, to determine the association between social media use and depression. It asked the participants about 11 of the most popular social media sites at the time: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Google Plus, Pinterest, Vine, and LinkedIn.
On average, the study found that these young adults visited the various social media sites 30 times per week and at a total of about 61 minutes per day. Of these participants, over a quarter were considered to have “high” indicators of depression.
individuals in the highest quartile of SM site visits per week and those with a higher global frequency score had significantly increased odds of depression.
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