Zerohedge 11/16/2018
A new report conducted by psychologists at the University of
Pennsylvania have determined that an excessive amount of time on “social
media” sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are making
millennials depressed.
“It was striking,” said Melissa Hunt, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who led the study. “What we found over the course of three weeks was that rates of depression and loneliness went down significantly for people who limited their (social media) use.”
The study, “No More FOMO: Limiting Social Media Decreases Loneliness and Depression," is being published in December’s Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.
Researchers recruited 143 students for two different trials, one in
the spring semester and one in the fall semester. Each subject was
required to have a Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat account, plus an
Apple iPhone. They collected data on the students for about a week to
get a baseline reading of their social media usage, and also had them
submit questionnaires that assessed their mental health according to
seven different factors: social support, fear of missing out,
loneliness, autonomy, and self-acceptance, anxiety, depression, and
self-esteem.
“Here’s the bottom line,” Hunt explained to Science Daily. “Using less social media than you normally would leads to significant decreases in both depression and loneliness. These effects are particularly pronounced for folks who were more depressed when they came into the study.”
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