Social Media Research from an Expert.
This is excerpted from The Morning Dispatch (big fan here) for Dec. 9, 2021. It is firewalled so I'm not sure a link would work.
A Clinical Psychologist on Social Media and Mental Health
In light of Mosseri’s testimony before Congress, we wanted to better understand the existing research on whether there’s a connection between social media use and mental health—and if Instagram’s proposed tweaks would have any effect. So we called Dr. Jacqueline Sperling, a psychology professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the McLean Anxiety Mastery Program at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts.
Our conversation is below, edited for length and clarity.
TMD: Could you summarize what we know about the relationship between social media use and mental health? Has it been around long enough to be able to draw some conclusions?
Dr. Jacqueline Sperling: Research has shown links between social media use and negative impacts on one’s mood, like depression and anxiety. It can also negatively impact one’s self-esteem and their body image, as well as contribute to sleep difficulties. But it’s important to keep in mind the type of social media use, because it’s not all types of use that are connected to those negative impacts.
TMD: Could you break down those different types of social media?
Sperling: There is self-oriented vs. other-oriented, and active vs. passive. So, for example, a self-oriented and active activity might be updating one’s profile. That activity, in and of itself, is not necessarily linked to a negative impact on one’s mood. It’s the passive activities—such as scrolling through one’s newsfeed—and other-oriented activities that create opportunities for social comparison. That’s the type of engagement that has been found to be linked to negative impacts on one’s mood, and body image and self-esteem difficulties.
You might see that someone has more likes than you got, or you might see different comments on their post compared to yours. You may see forms of social exclusion, friends of yours who are posting a picture at an event to which you were not invited. And then you also can see people posting pictures where they’ve used filters to adjust their photos before posting them. When people constantly see photos that have had filters applied, that may also distort their perspective of what a common body type actually is.
People select snippets of positive experiences to post; it’s not their entire life that is displayed on social media. Other users may then see that in someone’s profile and think, “Oh God, their life is better than mine.”
Worth Your Time
Right on cue: U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s office published a report this week on the state of youth mental health in America, and the findings are grim. “Recent research covering 80,000 youth globally found that depressive and anxiety symptoms doubled during the pandemic, with 25% of youth experiencing depressive symptoms and 20% experiencing anxiety symptoms,” it reads. “In early 2021, emergency department visits in the United States for suspected suicide attempts were 51% higher for adolescent girls and 4% higher for adolescent boys compared to the same time period in early 2019.” The report offers possible solutions, outlining the role various institutions—families, schools, health care organizations, social media companies, employers, governments, etc.—can play in reversing some of these trends. “For a generation of children facing unprecedented pressures and stresses, day in and day out, change can’t come soon enough,” the report concludes. “It won’t come overnight..”
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