Heavy Social Media Users Trapped In Endless Cycle of Depression (independent.co.uk)

An anonymous reader quotes an article on The Independent: The more time young adults spend on social media, the more likely they are to become depressed, a study has found. Of the 19- to 32-year-olds who took part in the research, those who checked social media most frequently throughout the week were 2.7 times more likely to develop depression than those who checked least often. The 1,787 U.S. participants used social media for an average 61 minutes every day, visiting accounts 30 times per week. Of them a quarter were found to have high indicators of depression. Dr Brian Primack, the director of Pitt's Centre for Research on Media, Technology and Health, led the study, said, "One strong possibility is that people who are already having depressive symptoms start to use social media more, perhaps because they do not feel the energy or drive to engage in as many direct social relationships." Update: 03/26 17:06 GMT by M : Oops -- as many of you correctly pointed out, we originally covered this story on Friday. Apologies for the error. Thanks!

Comments

Title is backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

As per the quote:

"One strong possibility is that people who are already having depressive symptoms start to use social media more, perhaps because they do not feel the energy or drive to engage in as many direct social relationships."

I think it is much more likely that depression causes the social media use, not that the social media use causes depression. Otherwise you might as well blame TV, books, and magazines, which all also portray unrealistic people and lives.