Social media use tied to poor physical health

A University at Buffalo researcher has found that social media use is linked to poor physical health among college students.

Research participants who used social media a lot were found to have higher levels of a biological marker of chronic inflammation. Higher social media use was also linked to headaches, chest and back pains, and more frequent visits to doctors and health centers for the treatment of illness, according to results.

David Lee, PhD, the paper's first author and assistant professor of communication in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, said that social media use has become an important part of many young adults' daily lives. We need to understand how engagement on these platforms contributes to physical health.

The journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking contains the findings.

For decades, researchers have focused on how social media affects users' mental health, but their effects on physical health have not been thoroughly investigated. People in their late teens and early 20s spend about six hours a day texting, online or using social media, according to recent surveys. A few studies have found links between social media usage and physical health, but they relied on self-reporting or the effects of usage with only one platform.

Lee, an expert on health outcomes related to social interactions, wanted to extend prior work by examining how social media use across several platforms is associated with physical health outcomes measured with biological, behavioral and self-report measures.

A diverse sample of 251 undergraduate students were recruited for the study. Blood samples were collected through finger sticks, and participants also completed questionnaires on physical health and social media usage on the most popular platforms at the time the data were collected. The degree to which participants took their role in the study seriously was measured by the validity of the responses.

Lee said that they were able to establish a correlation between the amount of social media use and the physical health indicators. The more participants used social media, the more they reported symptoms to the doctor. They had higher levels of chronic inflammation.

Lee says this study is just the beginning of understanding the relationship between social media and physical health.

"We were able to find a relatively more objective association between social media usage and physical health, but this correlational finding can't rule out the possibility that poor health impacts social media usage," said Lee.

Lee believes that the aphorism "The rich get richer while the poor get poorer" applies to social media use and physical health. People with low self-esteem did not benefit from using social media as much as those with high self-esteem did. The effect may be more nuanced.

Lee said there was still work to be done. I wanted to let people know that using social media may have a link to physical health outcomes.

The current study's research team included colleagues from The Ohio State University, including Baldwin Way, PhD, associate professor of psychology.

The story was told

The materials were provided by the University at Buffalo. The original was written by Gambini. Content can be edited for style and length.