A new large-scale diary study published by Loes Janssen, Patti Valkenburg, Loes Keijsers, & Ine Beyens, in Scientific Reports uncovers alarming differences in how adolescents with depressive symptoms experience social media compared with their peers.
The research followed 479 adolescents (average age ~16) over a 100-day period: before the diary began, their depressive symptoms were assessed; for the next 100 days, participants reported daily on whether they posted, chatted with friends, or scrolled through social media and how those activities felt.
Interestingly: adolescents with depressive symptoms spent about the same time posting and messaging as their peers, but, on average, they spent slightly more time scrolling.
More importantly: they reported more negative experiences from their social media use:
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Feeling insecure nearly twice as much after scrolling through content.
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Nearly twice as much perceived rejection during online chats with friends.
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Increased preoccupation with feedback while simultaneously rating feedback as less positive.
These results challenge a common narrative that social media might itself be primarily responsible for rising adolescent depression; instead, they suggest a reversal of causality: existing depressive symptoms might shape how adolescents use and perceive social media.
Implications:
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It’s not just how much social media adolescents use it’s how they feel while using it that matters.
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Future research should pay greater attention to the subjective, emotional experiences of social media.
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Support strategies for adolescent mental health should consider online as well as offline interactions.
For a full understanding, read the paper here.
