According to a Pew
Research Center study,
name-calling and
rumor-spreading were
the top reasons for social
media’s negative effect.attempts and suicide among adolescents and young
adults,” says Jean Twenge, a professor of psychol-
ogy at San Diego State University and the author of
iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Grow-
ing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—
and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood.
Twenge investigated individual associations be-
tween social-media use and happiness among ado-
lescents and young adults in her 2019 study “More
Time on Technology, Less Happiness?” The study
concluded that as social-media use increases, well-
being decreases, with one exception. Light users
scored higher in well-being than those who didn’t
use social media at all. Just weeks earlier, Primack
(at the time the director of the Center for Research
on Media, Technology and Health at the University
of Pittsburgh) found an even more direct correlation
between social-media time and the likelihood of de-
pression, anxiety and social isolation. And those who
had negative experiences on social media showed
higher levels of social isolation. (Almost all research
conducted to date has focused on social-media use
among those between the ages of 18 and 40. So far,
there is little data on how effects differ based on age.)
Still, the 24/7 slew of push notifications and dis-
tractions is seemingly impossible to ignore. “It’s right
there in your pocket, and it’s buzzing every few sec-
onds,” Primack says. With this comes the constant
internal nagging to check those notifications. “That
is the kind of thing that really can have a much more
dramatic effect on overall stress and anxiety.”
Stress can also come from our tendency to mea-
sure ourselves against what we see on our newsfeeds,
which is often just the best parts of other people’s
lives. “People are so able to curate various personae
that they develop and maintain online,” Primack says.
Social comparison is hardly a new idea, he says, but
social media’s distortion of how we view ourselves
and others online can exacerbate it.
Yet the case of social media and stress may not be
entirely grim. In the Pew Research survey, 40% of re-
spondents who believed social media had a positive
impact said that was because it allowed them to con-
nect with others. For users experiencing loneliness or
isolation in real life, Primack says, social media “very
well might be a lifesaver.”
After spending too much time scrolling through
Instagram stories and Facebook highlights, one may
be tempted to go completely off the social-media
grid, but Twenge recommends simply setting limits.
A 2018 study in the Journal of Social & Clinical Psy-
chology found that when college students limited their
social-media use to 10 minutes per platform (Face-
book, Instagram and Snapchat) per day, they showed
significant reductions in loneliness and depression.
Additionally, Primack and his colleagues published
a study in 2018 in the American Journal of Health Be-
havior that divided participants into five groups of
increasing social-media connectivity: Unplugged,
Concentrated Dabblers, Diffuse Dabblers, Connected
and Wired. The Connected and Wired groups had the
highest risk for depression and anxiety, while the more
moderate groups showed no association with these
feelings. “It’s when use becomes excessive that the
negative outcomes start to show up,” Twenge says.
Moderation may be key to staying connected while
combating social-media-induced stress. “Just limit
the amount of time that phone’s in your hand and limit
the amount of time you’re on social media,” Twenge
says, “so you can have time to notice the world around
you, talk to people face-to-face, get enough sleep and
do all those other important things.” •