A new study conducted by the Psychology Department at Penn State has resulted in an interesting revelation about social media as well as the mental and emotional well-being of the user. According to the experimental study, there seems to be a direct link between increased social media use and the emotional state of an individual. As part of the study, 143 students were monitored for a period of three weeks where they were assigned a limit of how much time they could use social media apps.
In this case, they were assigned a 10 minutes limit per app with the test spanning Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat per day. However, people were given a choice either to follow the limit or to use the apps as they generally would. To document the change, the study took a baseline test for all the participants before the start of the experiment and then weekly assessment on standard tests for social support, depression, and more. According to an initial report by TechCrunch, the research was published in the latest Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.
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The report noted that the test group “showed significant reductions” in the feeling of depression and loneliness compared to the regular group. However, the report also showed a reduction in the fear and anxiety of “fear” of missing out and “anxiety” when compared with the baseline.
However, the researchers behind the study indicate that this is very much incomplete and other researchers can take it forward to get comprehensive results with more data while changing the variables including the 30 minutes app usage.
