THURSDAY, May 8, 2025 (News GlobeNews) — A study released online May 5 indicates that teenagers dealing with mental health issues spend more time on social media compared to their peers who do not have such conditions.
Nature Human Behaviour
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Luisa Fassi, who works at the University of Cambridge in the UK, along with her team, analyzed information gathered from 3,340 British teenagers aged between 11 and 19 years old. Their study aimed to examine social media usage among those experiencing (16 percent had) mental health issues compared to their peers without such conditions.
The study revealed that teenagers dealing with mental health issues indicated they spent an additional 50 minutes daily on social platforms compared to their peers who do not have such conditions, and they also expressed lesser satisfaction regarding the quantity of their online connections. The data showed variations based on different types of disorders; teens suffering from internalizing problems exhibited higher engagement with social media, participated more frequently in social comparisons, felt stronger emotional effects from received feedback, and experienced reduced contentment concerning their number of virtual friendships as well as decreased sincere personal sharing. Conversely, those with externalizing conditions primarily noted increased duration of usage but did not show significant changes in other aspects like social comparison activities or mood influenced by peer responses.
“The study underscores elements of social media usage that could pose heightened risks to this particularly susceptible population and opens up opportunities for further investigation to guarantee that the online realm remains secure for every child, irrespective of their mental well-being,” the authors state.
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