Taking break from social media improves mental health: Study

May 07, 2022

New Delhi, May 07 (ANI): According to a new research, social media break for just a week improves individual's overall level of well-being, as well as reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety which helps people manage their mental health. The findings of the research were published in the journal 'Cyberpsychology Behavior and Social Networking'. The study, carried out by a team of researchers at the University of Bath, studied the mental health effects of a week-long social media break. For some participants in the study, this meant freeing-up around nine hours of their week which would otherwise have been spent scrolling Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok. For the study, the researchers randomly allocated 154 individuals aged 18 to 72 who used social media every day into either an intervention group, where they were asked to stop using all social media for one-week or a control group, where they could continue scrolling as normal. At the beginning of the study, baseline scores for anxiety, depression and wellbeing were taken. Feeling 'low' and losing pleasure are core characteristics of depression, whereas anxiety is characterised by excessive and out of control worry. Wellbeing refers to an individual's level of positive affect, life satisfaction and sense of purpose.According to the Mind, one in six of us experience a common mental health problem like anxiety and depression in any given week.