Social Networking Sites, Depression, and Anxiety
A lot of human interaction today happens on the internet. Our world revolves around hitting “like” on hilarious cat videos, posting little life updates to keep your family in the loop, adding that friend you went to high school with 10 years ago to your network, and scrolling—endlessly scrolling—through your feed to see familiar faces and read news updates.
Social media and networking platforms have become such an important part of modern culture, but how much have we thought about how it could be affecting our mental health?
In the paper “Social Networking Sites, Depression, and Anxiety: A Systematic Review” (Seabrook, Kern & Rickard 2016), researchers created a literature review on social networking sites and how it affects peoples’ relationships with depression and anxiety.
Does Social Media Cause Depression and Anxiety?
Overall, there were mixed reviews on whether social media use caused depression and anxiety. What provided a lot of value was looking at how users engaged and interacted on social media platforms and then how that tied to their experience of social anxiety and depression. Positive interactions, social support, and social connectedness on social media were consistently related to lower levels of depression and anxiety, compared to negative interactions and social comparisons that related to higher levels of depression and anxiety.
Most of the data in the studies were formed around what we see and read on someone’s social media profile, such as the language they use and the expressions of their identity. One example is when someone listed “Single” as their relationship status, this is related to higher levels of social anxiety. Studying an individual’s online language and identity provides a look into the depression and anxiety status of their social media use—which could be a helpful tool for mental health moving forward.
How Do Different Social Media Platforms Affect Me?
The social media platform itself—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Linked In, etc—plays an important role in how it affects mental health. Some platforms may be doing a better job providing social resources to users with depression compared to others (a topic that we’ll compare in the future). Is the platform pushing unrealistic standards? Is it good at weeding out false information? Ugh, that influencer is so much prettier than me. His vacation photos are incredible, he must be living the good life. These small thoughts can add up and affect how you feel about yourself and your life satisfaction.
Social comparison and feeling like you’re always experiencing negativity online are some of the biggest ways our minds play tricks on us and raise the risk of social anxiety. How many likes will I get? Why would someone leave a comment like that? That said, people who experience high social anxiety mainly use social media for casual browsing and private communication, rather than creating and posting content.
Am I Addicted to Social Media?
Some research suggests that the addictive use of social media comes from wanting to meet real-life social needs that have been set by social anxiety. For example, wishing that you’d belong and fit in, wanting to be looked at as socially competent, and trying to be an assertive communicator, could all be drivers for problematic social media use.
It can be a vicious cycle: depressive symptoms and social anxiety have a significant and direct relationship with social media addiction. And on the flip side, social media addiction or problematic use is related to higher levels of depression and anxiety.
All of this doesn’t mean deleting your social media accounts and losing faith in humanity, though. As we said, social media platforms can be beneficial when we’re experiencing positive quality interactions, social support, and feelings of social connectedness.
So we’re choosing to have a “glass half full” view and getting curious about how we can change the trajectory of the internet to be a more positive space. Starting with building a healthy database for Social Media and Well-Being research, we’ll be exploring ways to make the online experience more accessible, welcoming, and inclusive.
Study Objective & Methods
Social Networking Sites, Depression, and Anxiety: A Systematic Review
Elizabeth M Seabrook, BPsych (Hons); Margaret L Kern, PhD; Nikki S Rickard, PhD
Researchers gathered literature reviews on social networking sites and how it affects peoples’ relationships with depression and anxiety.
The study was conducted as a multi-database search where the researchers reviewed papers published between January 2005 and June 2016 that related to mental illness (depression and anxiety only).
Become E Certified
This research (and all our social media and well-being articles) have laid the foundation for our E Certification training: a 3-course program for anyone wanting to approach social media and communications in a way that protects well-being and puts people first. Learn more here.
