Social Media Effects on Mental Health

Completed

• Conditions: Mental Health Issue; Social Media Addiction; Internet Addiction; Mental Health Wellness 1; Mental Health Wellness 2

• Registration Number: NCT04967846
• Lead Sponsor: Yale-NUS College

Brief Summary

In the last decade, research on social media and mental health has produced mixed results. Overall, the current findings suggest that the negative effects on mental health are exacerbated by longer and more frequent social media usage, whereas the positive effects are bolstered when social media is used to connect with other people.

With the largest number of global users, Facebook is the most frequently studied social media network. Over the past few years, the increasing concerns about the risks associated with Facebook have even translated to wider pop culture conversations, as exemplified by the 2020 documentary The Social Dilemma. In response, Facebook has rolled out a series of features supposed to mitigate these risks and encourage responsible social media usage. These features include activity trackers and reminders, unfollow and snooze buttons, and data sharing regulators. Currently, there is no research done to address whether (1) these features are used at all, and (2) whether they are successful in moderating the negative mental health consequences of Facebook usage.

This study seeks to address the gap in literature through a survey done on the crowdsourcing platform Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk).

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2021-06-13
• Study First Submitted: 2021-06-16
• Study First Submitted QC: 2021-07-18
• Study First Posted: 2021-07-20
• Primary Completion: 2021-08-24
• Study Completion: 2021-09-19
• Status Verified: 2022-05
• Last Update Submitted: 2022-05-09
• Last Update Posted: 2022-05-10

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 608

Inclusion Criteria

• Healthy adult volunteers, aged 21 and above
• English proficiency
• Facebook users

Exclusion Criteria

• Participants below 21 years old
• Non-Facebook users

Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

Study & Design

• Study Type: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Design: Not specified

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Mental Health Scores	Once during the survey.	Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21), (measured on a 4 point scale: min = 0, max = 3; higher scores indicating higher depression, anxiety and/or stress).

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Yale NUS; 🇸🇬 Singapore, Singapore