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Between the COVID-19 blockades and the thrilling elections, 2020 is certainly pushing many of us to spend more time on social media than ever.
We all know this habit isn’t necessarily a good thing, with studies suggesting it can negatively impact our mental health, especially in young people. In turn, this can impact our ability to function well in our daily life and impact our physical health.
A new study from the University of British Columbia confirms this, finding that passive scrolling of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds negatively impact our well-being.
“The more respondents had recently used these sites, both in aggregate and individually, the greater the negative impact they reported when they responded to our random surveys over a 10-day period,” said psychologist Derrick Wirtz.
Much of this appears to be due to social media users comparing themselves to others.
“Viewing images and updates that selectively portray others in a positive way can lead social media users to underestimate how much others actually feel negative emotions and lead people to conclude that their own life, with its mix of feelings positive and negative, it is not so good by comparison, “he added.
The results were even more evident when Wirtz and the team compared social media interaction with offline interactions (including phone calls), finding that the latter increased participants’ positive emotions.
The team interviewed college students, so their results may not accurately reflect the experiences of the wider community, and there were only 77 participants at the end. But it adds to other research that has shown that passive use of social media negatively impacts well-being.
In contrast, a larger study with 400 participants that took place over a year found that using such virtual technologies can improve the mental health of young people.
Additionally, while breaks from social media sites, such as Facebook, have been shown to reduce physiological stress levels, this isn’t necessarily accompanied by how people feel, with study participants reporting lower levels of well-being.
These conflicting results supported the researchers How the social media used is the most important factor in its impact on well-being. And understanding how to best connect with each other virtually is especially important now as we try to keep physical distance from each other to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2.
Wirtz believes the key may be to use these platforms to allow for direct interactions, something participants in the new study rarely did.
Things that improve social connection, like talking to each other synchronously, could reduce these negative impacts, he said, explaining that in addition to focusing on interactions, we should also try to resist confrontation with other social media users.
“If we all remembered to do this, the negative impact of social media use could be reduced and social networking sites could even have the potential to improve our well-being and happiness,” he added.
Other studies have suggested that positive interactions and participation in collective action through social media can improve well-being. But only when participants posted publicly, once again supporting the idea that active-interactive rather than passive use might be more beneficial to our emotions.
The team said more research is needed to better understand whether social networking sites that promote relatively greater direct social interaction can increase well-being.
In the meantime, avoiding endless scrolling through our social media feeds will definitely help.
This research was published in Journal of Happiness Studies.
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