While there have always been concerns about the potentially harmful effects of social media, these concerns have been exacerbated in recent years by political and global events such as the 2016 US election and the COVID-19 pandemic. Some studies have suggested that social media offer individuals tools by which to overcome time and distance barriers to connect with others, maintaining and even strengthening social support networks, and thereby improving health and well-being. However, other studies have found that social media use can be detrimental to health and well-being, intensifying the fear of missing out, loneliness, anxiety, and depression. Despite the growing number of studies, there is no scientific consensus on how social media influence health and well-being.
Center Director Dr. K. “Vish” Viswanath and Research Scientist Dr. Mesfin Awoke Bekalu, alongside Taisuke Sato, a Research Assistant at Tufts Medical Center, decided to undertake a systematic review of studies on the effects of social media use on health and well-being. They reasoned that a possible explanation for the contradictory and inconsistent findings could be the lack of clarity and uniformity in the approaches taken by these studies. They therefore set out to determine (1) how social media use has been conceptualized and measured, (2) what health and well-being outcomes have been focused on, and (3) whether studies used theories. They used a rigorous four-step search strategy to identify relevant studies; and concluded with a total of 233 studies published between 2007 and 2020 in 51 different countries, with a cumulative sample size of 1,258,298 subjects. The researchers highlighted the following points:
- How has social media use has been conceptualized and measured?
- 72% of studies conceptualized social media as a “normal” behavior, while 28% of the studies conceptualized social media use as problematic and/or addictive. 18% of these studies measured their results using addiction scales.
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- 28% measured social media time, while 25% of studies measured frequency of use.
- What health and well-being outcomes have been focused on?
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- The majority of the studies (48%) examined the association of social media use with mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and loneliness.
- 17% of studies examined physical health outcomes such as self-rated health, sleep, and sitting time or lack of physical activity.
- Very few of the studies examined social (12%), psychological (11.8%), and emotional (10.6%) well-being.
- Do these studies use theory?
- 79% of the studies did not use any theories, while 21% used theories such as social comparison, social displacement, and gratification theories.
When examining the results of these studies, the researchers found that 60% reported negative health or well-being–compromising effects of social media use, 21% reported mixed outcomes, 10% reported positive or health or well-being–enhancing effects, and 9% reported no association between social media use and well-being. 40% of the studies that reported negative effects of social media use conceptualized social media use as an addiction, and measured their results using an addiction scale. Compared with 20 studies (12%) that conceptualized social media use as a “normal” social behavior, only one study that conceptualized social media use as an addiction reported positive effects on user well-being.
The researchers argued that these primarily negative results may be due to the fact that studies are skewed towards the negative in their focuses and conceptualizations. The review found that disproportionately large number of studies that investigated “ill-being” rather than “well-being”, and a significant number of studies conceptualized social media use as an addiction, leaving no room for potentially positive outcomes.
Other factors that call the results of these studies into question:
- The majority of the studies did not use any theories, which are important for moving the research field forward and informing research design
- The majority of the studies used cross-sectional designs, thus impeding cause-effect interpretations, while few used more rigorous designs such as longitudinal or experimental designs
- The majority of the studies used a convenience sampling method, while only 9% used a more representatively accurate probability-based sampling method
- The majority of the studies investigated the effects of general social media use and social media time, rather than focusing on specific social media sites, which differ greatly in their uses and effects
The researchers came to the conclusion that in order to develop a more complete and accurate picture of the effects of social media use on health and well-being, studies need to use more sophisticated measurement approaches, incorporate theories, and, most significantly, “refocus current and future research on both ill-being and well-being outcomes.”
To read the full review, please click here.
Written by Ayla Fudala, Center Communications Coordinator