There has been increasing concern that overall time spent online is contributing to greater loneliness and other psychological harm in children and young adults. But a new study by a team of international researchers and published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences found that it is the type of social media platform that is associated with loneliness, more than the use of social media itself.
The study was conducted by an international group of researchers from the University of Greenwich, King’s College London, Duke University, University of Oslo, and University of California, Irvine. It investigated patterns of digital technology use and their associations with loneliness in a cohort of 1,632 young adults (mean age 26) in the United Kingdom who had been followed prospectively since childhood for the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study. Data were collected via an online survey in 2019–2020. The period of data collection allowed for comparing young adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The researchers reported that networking social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (now known as X) were not especially associated with above average levels of loneliness. However, those sites that promote passive consumption such as YouTube and Reddit, as well as some dating apps, were. The one app that stood out was WhatsApp, which was associated with lower levels of loneliness. These patterns between social media platforms and loneliness were the same before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Researchers also found that compulsive use of digital technology or experiences of online victimization were associated with higher levels of loneliness, suggesting that it is the nature of digital technology experiences that are associated with loneliness.
Much has been debated in policy circles regarding the effects of social media use on youth and how best to regulate it. This paper demonstrates that mental health issues, specifically loneliness, and its association with social media are nuanced and should not be treated as a homogenous category because of the differences between platform types and how they are used. This study will help to inform users, public health officials, and policy makers about more effective ways to use and regulate social media to optimize public health.
A copy of the study may be downloaded here “Social media use, online experiences, and loneliness among young adults: A cohort study”.
