Facebook Depression: Its real !

Latest study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology says Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram can cause depression. They say, spending too much time on “social media” sites like Facebook is making people not  just miserable, but depressed. The study was conducted by psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania.

This is the first experimental study that has been carried out to determine causal link between time spent on these social media and increased depression and loneliness. Few studies carried out earlier  have attempted to show that social-media use harms users’ well-being, but then in those studies  participants were put in unrealistic situations or were limited or where asked to completely forego Facebook.

The study was carried out by Psychologist Melissa G. Hunt. The study involved 143 participants who where undergraduates and had iPhone. Half of the participants were allowed to using social media sites as normal and the other half were restricted to ten minutes per day for each of the three sites studied.Study period lasted for three weeks and during this period Hunt evaluated them for seven outcome measures including social support, fear of missing out, loneliness,autonomy, self-acceptance, anxiety, depression, and self-esteem.

Hunt summarized the study findings as follows  “Using less social media than you normally would leads to significant decreases in both depression and loneliness. These effects are particularly pronounced for folks who were more depressed when they came into the study.” 

Why does social media make people feel so depressed?

Compare and Despair

Social media provides people umpteen number of opportunities to compare themselves with their peers and friends and feel dejected and depressed looking at their near to perfect posts.

Information overload

Interestingly most people are active over atleast fourplatforms namely Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or snapchat, and Pinterest  and in addition they would be receiving emails, voice messages, whatsapp messages. Continuously glancing through social media, a person is feeding their own brain so much information which lead to mental disbalance and finally depression.

Fewer accomplishments because of social media presence

On an average a person spends two hours surfing socialmedia. This is happening at the expense of their office time and personal time.This would mean fewer achievements and bad relationship management, which would eventually lead to depression

Growing Negativity

Social media is a breeding ground for arguments, fake news,and agenda-driven negative monologues. Repeated exposure to this negative postsand images can make a person to feel like they are living in a bubble of rage,hatred, and chaos, which can lead to depression over time. 

Social media injuries

Continuous social media usage leads to eyesight, neck pain and back problems. “Text neck” or Tech neck is the term used to describe the neck pain and damage sustained from looking down at the cell phone, tablets or other wireless device too frequently and for too long. Sense of pain which prolongs for a long period puts one into depression.

Way Out

Social media is an integral part of life and it’s not possible to turn away from it, at the same time one can practice self restrain and discipline to prevent from slipping into social media caused depression.