Social Media and Low Mood in Young People
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Adolescent Depression: The Role of Social Media
IRAS ID
291388
Contact name
Eve Twivy
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 3 months, 1 days
Research summary
Research Summary
This study aims to investigate the role of social media in adolescent depression. Depression is the most common mental health problem worldwide. It tends to emerge during adolescence, and can have detrimental consequences for individuals and families. Researchers have identified that adolescents with depression think and behave in ways that negatively affect their mood. However, we don’t yet know whether thoughts and behaviours related to social media use also contribute to depression. Given that most adolescents use social media, it is important that we gain a better understanding of its potential positive and negative impact on mood.
Adolescents (aged 11-18 years old) will be recruited from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), schools and online advertisements. Adolescents who volunteer to take part in the study will complete a one-off brief series of questionnaires online. The questionnaires will measure aspects of social media use and mental health, including levels of depression. We will determine whether there are any differences in the ways that adolescents with and without clinical levels of depression engage with social media.
This study could provisionally indicate whether thoughts and behaviours related to social media use play a role in adolescent depression. By gaining a better understanding of the factors that contribute to depression in adolescents, this could help to develop more effective treatments for young people in the future.
Summary of Results
Depression is the most common mental health problem worldwide. It tends to arise during adolescence, and has negative consequences for individuals and their families. Most adolescents use social media, but we don’t have a good understanding of its impact on depression. So far, most research has looked at quantity of social media use. The findings are unclear: some studies, but not others, have found that more time spent on social media is linked to depression.
When young people have been interviewed, they have said that social media can have both positive and negative effects on their mood depending on how it is used. Therefore, we wanted to explore the different ways that adolescents engage with social media. Previous research has found that the way young people think and act in the ‘offline’ world has an impact on their mood. We wanted to find out if the ways that adolescents think about and use social media are also important.
Due to a lack of existing measures, we aimed to create a questionnaire assessing positive and negative ways of engaging with social media. Following this, we wanted to explore whether there were differences in the ways that adolescents with and without depression use social media.
REC name
London - Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/LO/0775
Date of REC Opinion
3 Nov 2021
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion