- Social media can make some people distracted, anxious, and depressed.
- Yet disconnecting completely can have both positive and negative effects, a new study found.
- Researchers say a “digital detox” won’t leave you with any withdrawal symptoms.
Going on a full “digital detox” may not be all that beneficial after all, according to a new study by researchers at Durham University.
To find out whether “withdrawal symptoms” can really be linked to social media, they asked 51 students to avoid sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for a week. About a third of the participants had social-media behaviors that were defined as problematic.
Their mood was tracked for 15 days through a self-recorded survey.
During the week 86% “relapsed” at least once, but their average use time remained below 30 minutes.
However, the study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, found that there was no evidence that disconnecting from your online life produces withdrawal symptoms.
They say that the findings show social media may not be as addictive as some claim.
The digital detox did cause the participants to feel fewer negative emotions, like intimidation and harassment, and many reported experiencing less FOMO.
However, their positive interactions also decreased. The participants experienced more boredom and loneliness due to a lack of connection and receiving social rewards like likes and comments, according to the study.
Experts haven’t reached a consensus on how harmful and addictive social media really is. While the study’s authors don’t dispute that social media can have negative effects, they stressed that “addiction” isn’t the right term to use.
Last year, in a landmark case on social media safety, a British inquest into the suicide of 14-year-old Molly Russell found it was “likely” that thousands of images she viewed on Instagram and Pinterest had affected her mental health in a way that “contributed to her death in a more than minimal way.”
In the US, Meta is being sued by 33 states for fueling a youth mental health crisis and knowingly designing their social media platforms such as Instagram to be addictive to children.
“People who feel that they are using their phone too much, insofar as it is interfering with their quality of life, should maybe make their smartphone use more conscious, and keep their phone out of the way of idle hands,” Sally Andrews, a psychologist at Nottingam Trent University, previously told Insider.
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