Social media greatly influences kids’, young adults’, and even adults’ lives, leading to more stress and mental issues. You may feel anxious, stressed, and/or depressed after a while of passively scrolling through Instagram, and a recent study confirms that this activity, indeed, affects your mental health negatively.

Researchers from Bournemouth University note that it’s not entirely clear how social media use affects mental distress in people. They wanted to better understand this by looking at different ways people interact with social media, and how these ways influence feelings of depression, anxiety, and stress, particularly through loneliness.

They gathered information through an online survey of 288 young adults in the UK, aged 18-34. They found that those who used social media more passively (just scrolling, not interacting) experienced more anxiety, depression, and stress.

The aim of the study

“Social media holds significant importance for this group of young people – while some individuals talk highly about it, other demonise it,” says Dr. Constantina Panourgia, Senior Lecturer in Developmental Psychology at Bournemouth University. “Previous studies have tended to look at specific platforms or the amount of time spent online. However, our aim was to  delve deeper and investigate the different ways in which people engage with social media, regardless of which platforms they use.”

The methodology

The researchers looked at three types of social media use: Passive (users who only browse content by other users), Active non-social (users who post their own content but don’t engage with others), and Active Social (users posting their own content and interacting with other people’s posts).

The findings

The study results are quite surprising! They found that using social media a lot without interacting (passive use) increases anxiety, depression, and stress. On the other hand, making and posting content online without communicating with others directly (active non-social use) actually reduces stress.

“This finding highlights the positive aspects of active non-social media use, such as public content sharing, that allows users to receive feedback, such as likes and positive comments to their posts, but without the demands of direct social interactions. In other words, active non-social media users do not experience the additional pressures from constantly participating or initiating conversations with other people online which can be mentally exhausting.” – Dr. Panourgia.

What makes this study unique is that it explored some aspects of the active use of social media that have been previously overlooked in research. “We noted that the manner in which users engage with social media plays a crucial role in their psychological wellbeing,” study leader Zoe Taylor explained. “Individuals who passively use social media tend to experience greater feelings of loneliness which can subsequently lead to increased psychological distress.”

The study also found that being lonely was the link between passive use and bad mental health effects.

“Passive social media does not provide opportunities for communication and self-disclosure which are known to promote connectedness and social support . So, users may feel isolated and excluded, leading to exacerbated feelings of loneliness and subsequently to increased levels of stress, anxiety and depression.” – Dr. Panourgia

Why is this study important?

I don’t know about you, but I tend to scroll mindlessly through Instagram when I’m already depressed, or when I’m just having a rough day. But I notice that my mood gets even worse after I just scroll through other people’s content without sharing anything, or at least having some positive interaction.

Thanks to this study and other research like this, we can learn to manage our time on social media. We can explore and understand our motives and behavior, and learn how to benefit from social media use instead of letting them have a negative impact on our mental health.

“Rather than advocating for strict social media restrictions, it would be advantageous to help young adults comprehend their needs for social media use and also the risks associated with passive social media use,” Dr Panourgia concluded. I agree with it, so I’ll leave you with this conclusion.

The study was published in the Behaviour and Information Technology journal, and you can read the entire study here.