mental health

Does Time Spent on Social Media Affect Mental Health in Teens?

New research published in JAMA Psychiatry suggests that time spent on social media may be associated with an increased risk of mental health issues, especially internalizing conditions such as anxiety and depressive symptoms, among US adolescents.

Researchers arrived at their conclusion after performing a nationally representative, longitudinal cohort study of 6595 US adolescents from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study. Although many cross-sectional studies of the relationship between social media and mental health have been conducted, few longitudinal studies have examined this association until now.

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“Getting a sense of temporality from cross-sectional studies can be difficult because in these studies, social media and mental health are measured simultaneously,” corresponding author Kira Riehm, MS, from the Department of Mental Health at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, told Consultant360. “The data from the PATH study, which we used in our study, presented a really unique opportunity to assess this association longitudinally.”

After evaluating participants via household interviews using audio computer-assisted self-interviewing, the researchers found in unadjusted analyses that spending more than 30 minutes of time on social media was associated with an elevated risk of internalizing issues alone and comorbid internalizing and externalizing issues compared with no use. However, the researchers noted, associations with externalizing issues were not consistent.

Adjusted analyses indicated that social media use for more than 3 hours per day remained significantly associated with internalizing problems alone and comorbid internalizing and externalizing problems compared with no use. However, no significant association was observed for externalizing problems alone.

“These results were consistent with what we would expect from cross-sectional studies,” Riehm told Consultant360. “What was surprising, though, was that even though our study design was more rigorous than that of previous studies, these associations remained significant under this design. This speaks to the importance of the associations we observed in our study,” she added.

Riehm and colleagues concluded that future research initiatives should aim to explore whether limiting daily social media use, increasing media literacy, and redesigning social media platforms could effectively reduce the burden of mental health issues among adolescents. However, Riehm noted, it is important to balance the potential harms of social media with its benefits.

“The key take-home message of our study is that, although it appears that time spent on social media is associated with internalizing problems, it is important to remember that social media can offer an outlet to many teens who often do not find community in their day-to-day lives, like teens in the LGBTQ community. It can often be a lot easier for them to find a community online,” Riehm told Consultant360. “I think it’s important to try to maximize those positive interactions on social media and to teach teens how to critically interact with what they see and read online.”

Pediatricians can discuss strategies such as the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Family Media Plan with parents who express concern about their children’s social media use, said Riehm. The plan, she explained, allows families to set developmentally appropriate guidelines around different aspects of screen time and digital media use in the household. Aspects of the plan can include:

  • Determining screen-free zones in the household.
  • Setting times where use of screens is not allowed, such as at the dinner table, so that families can spend time together without electronics.
  • Setting a device curfew, during which devices need to be turned off entirely after a certain time of day.


—Christina Vogt

Reference:
Riehm KE, Feder KA, Tormohlen KN, et al. Associations between time spent using social media and internalizing and externalizing problems among US youth [Published online September 11, 2019]. JAMA Psychiatry. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.2325.