Heavy use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapachat, and Instagram is likely to make a person more depressed and feel lonely. A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania carried out a study on 143 undergraduate. The result showed that that extreme use of social media might lead to poor health and can make a person depressed. The study was published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. The study showed that limiting the on screen time of smartphones can actually help in lifting one’s mood and wellness.
According to Melisa Hunt, who is from University of Pennsylvania, said that when on is not scrolling newsfeed on their social account, they are actually doing something that is more important, as it makes one feel better. The research team asked the participant to use three majorly used platforms.
The researchers gathered information regarding data usage through the help of iPhones which have inbuilt tracker for background running apps. They also asked respondents to finish a survey which made the respondents to determine their mood and well-being.
After that, the participants were asked to restrict their social media uses to 10 minutes on a daily basis. Apart from these, participants shared their battery usages to the researchers for three weeks.
The researchers observed the seven outcomes which also had fear of missing out, depression, loneliness, and anxiety.
The result clearly showed that lesser usage of social media on the daily basis helped in deterring down the depression and loneliness in an individual.
