According to new research, taking a break from social media for just one week improves an individual’s overall level of well-being, as well as reduces symptoms, which helps people manage your mental health. The research findings were published in the journal Cyberpsychology Behavior and Social Networking.
The study, conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Bath, looked at the mental health effects a week’s break from social media. For some study participants, this meant freeing up around nine hours of their week that would otherwise have been spent scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok.
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For the study, researchers randomly assigned 154 people ages 18 to 72 who used social media every day to either an intervention group, where they were asked to stop using all social media for one week, or a group of control, where could continue to move normally. At the start of the study, baseline scores for anxiety, depression, and well-being were taken.
Participants reported spending an average of 8 hours per week on social media at the start of the study. One week later, participants who were asked to take a week-long break had significant improvements in well-being, depression, and anxiety compared to those who continued to use social media, suggesting a short-term benefit. .
Participants who were asked to take a week-long break reported using social media for an average of 21 minutes compared to an average of seven hours for those in the control group. Screen usage statistics were provided to verify that people had adhered to the break.
Lead researcher from the Bath Department of Health, Dr Jeff Lambert, explained: “Scrolling through social media is so ubiquitous that many of us do it almost without thinking from the moment we wake up until we close our eyes in the morning. evening.
“We know that social media use is huge and that there are growing concerns about its effects on mental health, so with this study we wanted to see if simply asking people to take a week-long break could lead to mental health benefits.
“Many of our participants reported positive effects of being off social media with better mood and less anxiety in general. This suggests that even a short break can have an impact.”
“Of course, social media is a part of life and for many people, it’s an indispensable part of who they are and how they interact with others. But if you spend hours each week scrolling and feel like it’s affecting you negatively, it might be worth the effort.” worth reducing its use to see if it helps.
The team now wants to build on the study to see if taking a short break can help different populations (eg, younger people or people with physical and mental health problems).
The team also wants to follow people for more than a week, to see if the benefits last over time. If so, in the future, they speculate this could become part of the suite of clinical options used to help manage mental health.
In the last 15 years, social networks have revolutionized the way we communicate, accentuated by the enormous growth that the main platforms have seen.
In the UK, the number of adults using social media increased from 45% in 2011 to 71% in 2021. Among 16-44 year olds, up to 97% use social media, with scrolling the most common . online activity that we carry out.
Feeling ‘low’ and losing pleasure are core features of depression, while anxiety is characterized by excessive and out-of-control worry. Well-being refers to an individual’s level of positive affect, life satisfaction, and sense of purpose.
According to Mind, one in six of us experiences a common mental health problem, such as anxiety and depression, in any given week.
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