Social Media Can Drag Down Troubled Young People

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Is there a person in your life who just can’t stop scrolling social media, almost as if they’ve formed an emotional dependence on sites like Instagram and TikTok?

Such an attachment might be associated with worse mental health symptoms among young people being treated for depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts, a new study says.

About 40% of troubled 8- to 20-year-olds reported social media use that could be problematic, saying that they feel discontented, disconnected and upset when they can’t log on to their favorite sites, researchers report in the April issue of Journal of Affective Disorders.

These young people also had higher levels of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, as well as poorer overall well-being, compared to peers in treatment who weren’t overly attached to social media, researchers found.

For the study, researchers reviewed responses from a social media questionnaire completed by 489 patients in the Texas Youth Depression and Suicide Registry. The registry tracks patients who are receiving care for depression or suicide risk at 12 academic hospitals across the state.

Young people with problematic social media use were more likely to report higher amounts of screen time, researchers found.

They also had more symptoms of depression, anxiety and suicidality, and those symptoms tended to be more severe, compared to young people in treatment who didn’t use social media as often.

Further, troubled young people hooked on social media had higher levels of substance abuse, results showed.

Source: HealthDay
https://www.healthday.com/health-news/mental-health/social-media-can-drag-down-troubled-young-people