American scientists have found that spending more than 2.5 hours a day on social media may be linked to an increased risk of depression, reports infohub.kz.
The study, published in the journal npj Mental Health Research, is based on an analysis of data from about 183,000 American adults aged 18 to 70 who participated in annual surveys from 2014 to 2024.
The researchers compared time spent on social media with signs of depression, taking into account age, income, and other sociodemographic factors. Importantly, the data were self-reported: participants themselves reported depression, without confirmation from a doctor, so the researchers could not verify the presence of a clinical diagnosis.
The association between time on social media and depression persisted throughout all 11 years of the study. Each additional hour per day on social media increased the likelihood of reporting depression by about 17%.
The researchers also found that using social media for up to 150 minutes (2.5 hours) a day had almost no effect on the depression prognosis. However, beyond that threshold, the association became more pronounced. This does not mean that 150 minutes is a safe limit after which social media inevitably causes depression, but it is the threshold identified by the statistical model.
The authors emphasize that there are several possible explanations: prolonged time on social media may negatively affect mental health, but people with depression may also turn to social media more often. These possibilities are not mutually exclusive. Long-term and experimental studies are needed to confirm the results.
It is also unknown whether different ways of using social media have the same effect: active communication or passive content viewing. Earlier, Kursiv Health reported that people with depression may react more strongly to online support than healthy individuals.