It feels like it's bad for you as our attention spans rot and meaning is lost. The evidence isn't yet there to prove that social media harms our mental health. The evidence of surging mental ill health is strong, with 30% of 18- to 24-year-olds reporting a common mental disorder, up from 24% at the start of the millennium, so it's hard not to worry that this debate echoes the mid-20th century arguments that we hadn't The link between smoking and death was not believed to have been proven by the 1960s.
New research shows that the introduction of Facebook across US universities was staggered and spread across the country. It shows that when the platform arrived, students were more likely to report poor mental health with an increase in depression and anxiety. The negative impact of Facebook being 22% of losing a job is large. Increasing social comparisons are argued to be the cause of the impact. If you aren't having a good time, it's not good. The research shows that the arrival of Facebook increased students' perception of how much other students were drinking, but did not affect actual drinking levels.
It is hard to believe that newer forms of addiction are not harmful.
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