essay on social media has made us unsocial

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The Era of Antisocial Social Media

• Sara Wilson

Young people’s behaviors are changing. How will businesses adapt?

When you look at who is — and more importantly, who is not — driving the growth and popularity of social platforms, a key demographic appears to be somewhat in retreat: young people. They’re craving privacy, safety, and a respite from the throngs of people on social platforms (throngs that now usually include their parents), and gravitating toward more intimate destinations. The author has dubbed these “digital campfires.” She outlines three kinds of campfires, including the characteristics of each, as well as how brands are successfully reaching these audiences.

Social platforms are still reporting robust growth — yes, even Facebook — despite a growing chorus of opposition. Social conversation continues to shape everything from culture to the media cycle to our most intimate relationships . And we now spend more time than ever on our phones , with endless scrolling through our social feeds being a chief reason why.

• Sara Wilson   helps brands, publishers and high-profile individuals find, engage and grow devoted audiences across digital channels. As the founder of SW Projects , she has advised clients including Nike, Bumble, the New York Times, National Geographic, Sony Pictures Television, Bustle, Overheard, and others. Prior to SW Projects, Sara oversaw lifestyle partnerships at Facebook & Instagram. Sara is also the creator of The Digital Campfire Download, where she interviews the entrepreneurs behind the fastest-growing online communities today. You can follow her on Twitter @ wilsonspeaks  or on LinkedIn @ saraewilson .

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Is Social Media Making Us Less Social?

Written by Steve Rose

Identity, purpose, and belonging, 15 comments(s).

On the go? Listen to the audio version of the article here:

In an age where we are becoming more connected through social media every day, it sometimes feels like we are also becoming less social.

Why go through all of the inconvenience of meeting up in person when you can simply catch up online?

Within the last decade, technology has profoundly shifted the nature of human communication.

Some say we are “hyper-social,” always connected and communicating with multiple people at the same time.  Others would say we have become “anti-social,” glued to our devices, and lacking interpersonal skills.  So which is it?

Is social media making us less social?

Social Media is making us less social when used to compare oneself to others, contributing to higher levels of loneliness and lower levels of well-being among frequent users. It can be social when used to connect with others.

Let’s take a look at the research.

Also, if you or someone you know is struggling with mental health issues, you can check out my  resource page  for suggestions on how to find help.

Social Media Contributes to Social Isolation

The first study looking at this phenomenon was published in 1998, around the time when many people were starting to use the internet.

The researchers followed 169 people during the first two years of their internet use to determine if this new technology made them more social or less social, finding:

“…greater use of the Internet was associated with declines in participants’ communication with family members in the household, declines in the size of their social circle, and increases in their depression and loneliness.”

This was seen as quite the paradox, given that the individuals were using the internet extensively as a communication technology.

A 2004 study comparing internet use to face-to-face interaction found a similar conclusion, stating:

…the Internet can decrease social well-being, even though it is often used as a communication tool.

Has anything changed since then?

Ten years later, a 2014 study  on college students suffering from internet addiction found:

Results show that excessive and unhealthy Internet use would increase feelings of loneliness over time…[.] This study also found that online social contacts with friends and family were not an effective alternative for offline social interactions in reducing feelings of loneliness.

In her recent book,  iGen , Jean Twenge writes about the generation born after 1994, finding high rates of mental health issues and isolation:

“A stunning 31% more 8th and 10th graders felt lonely in 2015 than in 2011, along with 22% more 12th graders”…[.] All in all, iGen’ers are increasingly disconnected from human relationships.

She argues the increasing level of screen-time and decreasing degree of in-person interaction leaves igen lacking social skills:

“In the next decade we may see more young people who know just the right emoji for a situation—but not the right facial expression.”

A 2016 study comments on this generational phenomenon, stating:

It is surprising then that, in spite of this enhanced interconnectivity, young adults may be lonelier than other age groups, and that the current generation may be the loneliest ever.

The correlation between internet use and isolation is fairly established in the literature. But let’s not paint the whole internet with the same brush.

A 2014 study  highlights the psychological costs and benefits derived from social media use, stating:

…online tools create a paradox for social connectedness. On one hand, they elevate the ease in which individuals may form and create online groups and communities, but on the other, they can create a source of alienation and ostracism.

It turns out the answer may be a bit more complicated.

Let’s take a look at the specific factors that make the difference.

Social Media Can Be Social (If used to connect)

A 2016 study with the apt subtitle, “Why an Instagram picture may be worth more than a thousand Twitter words,” finds that image-based social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat may be able to decrease loneliness because of the higher levels of intimacy they provide.

Another 2016 study , specifically looking at Instagram use, found that it isn’t the platform that matters. It is the way the platform is used that matters.

The researchers studied Instagram use among 208 undergraduate students, finding there was one thing that made all the difference: “the social comparison orientation.”

What is social comparison orientation?

It’s when you compare yourself to others on social media. For example, you may find yourself passively scanning through an endless feed of finely curated photos, wishing you had a different body, a different job, a different  life !

It’s the sense that everyone has it better than you, and that you’re missing out on all of the best events, vacations, and products.

Students who rated high on social comparison orientation were more likely to widely broadcast their posts in an attempt to gain status. Students who rated low were more likely to use the platform to connect with others meaningfully.

A 2008 study on internet use among older adults supports this distinction, finding:

…greater use of the Internet as a communication tool was associated with a lower level of social loneliness. In contrast, greater use of the Internet to find new people was associated with a higher level of emotional loneliness.

Using the internet as a communication tool can decrease loneliness.

Experimental evidence in a 2004 study , highlights this by measuring a person’s level of loneliness throughout multiple intervals as they engage in an online chat. They concluded:

Internet use was found to decrease loneliness and depression significantly, while perceived social support and self-esteem increased significantly.

Although chatting online can decrease loneliness, what about using social media platforms to post status updates?

A 2012 study  conducted an experiment to determine if posting a Facebook status increases or decreases loneliness. Yes, this is an actual experiment.

The researchers told one group of participants to increase their number of status updates for one week. They didn’t give any instructions to a second control group. Results revealed:

(1) that the experimentally induced increase in status updating activity reduced loneliness, (2) that the decrease in loneliness was due to participants feeling more connected to their friends on a daily basis, and (3) that the effect of posting on loneliness was independent of direct social feedback (i.e., responses) by friends.  

These results may seem to contradict the previous finding that social media broadcasting is correlated with increased loneliness, but there is a crucial difference: the social comparison orientation.

In this experiment, the researchers did not differentiate between users who had high or low levels of social comparison. The users in the group being told to update their status more frequently were not told to scan their news feeds more often, nor was their social media use manipulated to alter their level of social comparison.

So what is the key lesson here?

Using social media in a way that connects us with others can make us less lonely and more social.

Unfortunately, as social media use increases, we are becoming lonelier.

This trend suggests we may not be using social media in the most social ways, comparing ourselves to others. In addition, we may be sacrificing in-person interaction for the convenience of social media interaction. Both of these factors increase the likelihood of experiencing social isolation.

If you are interested in reading more on the psychology of social media, you can check out my comprehensive post on the topic here: Why We Are Addicted To Social Media: The Psychology of Likes .

In that article, I go deep into the research on what keeps our brains hooked on social media likes and how you can use social media in a healthier way.

Fascinated by ideas? Check out my podcast:

Struggling with an addiction.

If you’re struggling with an addiction, it can be difficult to stop. Gaining short-term relief, at a long-term cost, you may start to wonder if it’s even worth it anymore. If you’re looking to make some changes, feel free to reach out. I offer individual addiction counselling to clients in the US and Canada. If you’re interested in learning more, you can send me a message here .

Other Mental Health Resources

If you are struggling with other mental health issues or are  looking for a specialist near you, use the Psychology Today therapist directory  here to find a practitioner who specializes in your area of concern.

If you require a lower-cost option, you can check out BetterHelp.com . It is one of the most flexible forms of online counseling.  Their main benefit is lower costs, high accessibility through their mobile app, and the ability to switch counselors quickly and easily, until you find the right fit.

*As an affiliate partner with Better Help, I receive a referral fee if you purchase products or services through the links provided.

As always, it is important to be critical when seeking help, since the quality of counselors are not consistent. If you are not feeling supported, it may be helpful to seek out another practitioner. I wrote an article on things to consider here .

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15 Comments

that’s just it, people often mistake being connected on a more personal level with the total number of “Friends” they have on FB or MySpace or whatever OTHER forms of social networking, and they often neglect to realize, that face-to-face interaction is what makes these connections between people more intimate…

Exactly. Social media can supplement your social life if used to connect, but can’t be a substitute for it. Thanks for the comment! Great to connect with you again. It has been a while since I’ve posted.

Yeah but now, modern day people tend to use social media as their only FORM of connection, it’s like if you don’t exist on FB or other forms of social netowrking sites, you practctically, don’t exist at all!

With the trend toward increasing loneliness, it would for sure suggest social media is replacing in-person interaction.

one of the damning statistics on the recent programme Pllanet Children was 97% of primary school children were taken to school by an adult. They spend less time outside than those in prison. Our kids are getting fatter. They live in a bubble and social media swells that bubble and the vision of themselves becomes increasingly distorted. My grandkid loves phones because mum and dad always have their noses in their phones. The grandkid isn’t content with a kid-on phone. She wants the real one, and she’s just over a year old. We create our own hell, but our kids jump in with both feet. Why shouldn’t they? Mum and dad do it and it’s vastly entertaining. Social media swallows time. Why am I adding to it here? God knows.

Thanks for sharing this fact and your personal experience! I think you might be interested in this book on the subject of bubble wrapped children: Free-Range Kids, How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)

Thanks for raising this issue, Steve. I’ve tried, without success, to arrange a lunch-meet with a dear friend–just half-hour away by bus–who has fallen victim to FB’s false promise of connection. Since I’ve long escaped from FB-addiction, I no longer know how she’s doing.

Glad to see you’ve been able to gain a sense of control! I hope your friend is well and wish her all the best.

In a restaurant, I went to a couple both staring deeply and silently at their phones and said, “That’s true love.” They laughed.

lol! Nice one!

Not up on the research, but it is fascinating. Might we be getting the correlation confused? Could it be that people who are more lonely are more likely to spend time on social media in search of connection? Is this controlled in the research?

From the research I’ve seen so far, it seems that social anxiety is the confounding variable between loneliness and increased social media use. Also, Jean Twange looks at this question in her book igen and finds that the research supports the hypothesis that social media use leads to increased loneliness. A couple of experiments I cited here use a control and don’t support that hypothesis, but they are fairly limited because they only look at narrow forms of social media use like status updates or chatting with an anonymous person.

Correctly said.

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How Social Media Makes Us Unsocial: Allison Graham (Transcript)

• June 11, 2020 7:47 am September 25, 2023 4:21 am
• by Pangambam S

Here is the transcript and summary of Social Media historian Allison Graham’s talk:  How Social Media Makes Us Unsocial at TEDxSMU conference. In this talk, she shares the funny and revealing insights of a life lived online and how social media is used to connect and disconnect us.

Best quote from this talk: 

“I think we would all live life better if we had hands to hold rather than keys to click.”

Listen to the MP3 Audio here:

TRANSCRIPT: 

Allison Graham – Social Media historian

Hi! Thank you very much.

I’d like to start out by asking everyone to power down their devices during my talk. And for those of you that don’t know the power buttons, it’s either on the top or on the side of your phone.

I’d also like to thank the guys from state.com for permission to use this video.

[Video clip]

“I want to post about how great this coffee is, but I can’t think of a funny way to say it.”

“This post is like a page long. How do I shorten this?”

“Just take out all the vowels.” [Still be the other page]

“Seriously!”

Pages: First | 1 | ... | Next → | Last | View Full Transcript

The Social Dilemma: How Social Media is Making Us Unsocial

Disclosure: Some of the links on this page may contain affiliate links.

Social media has revolutionized the way we communicate and connect with others, but it’s also changing the way we interact in real life. With the rise of curated feeds and endless scrolling, social media is making us more unsocial than ever before.

Learn about the impact of social media on our social lives and what we can do to stay connected in meaningful ways.

The Addictive Nature of Social Media

Social media is designed to be addictive, with features like notifications, likes, and comments triggering dopamine releases in our brains.

This can lead to compulsive behavior, such as constantly checking our phones for updates or feeling anxious when we’re away from social media for too long.

It’s important to be aware of these addictive tendencies and take steps to limit our social media use if necessary.

The Impact of Curated Feeds on Our Perception of Reality

Curated feeds on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram can create a distorted perception of reality. These feeds are designed to show us content that we’re most likely to engage with, based on our past behavior.

Which means that we’re often only seeing a small portion of the content that’s available, and it may not be representative of the world as a whole.

This can lead to a skewed view of reality, where we only see the highlights of other people’s lives and compare ourselves unfavourably.

It’s important to remember that social media is not a reflection of real life, and to take breaks from it if necessary to maintain a healthy perspective.

The Rise of Cyberbullying and Online Harassment

Unfortunately, social media has also given rise to cyberbullying and online harassment. With the ability to hide behind anonymous usernames, people feel emboldened to say things they wouldn’t normally say in person.

This can have devastating effects on the mental health and well-being of those targeted. It’s important for social media platforms to take a strong stance against cyberbullying and harassment, and for individuals to speak out against it and support those who are affected.

The Effect of Social Media on Mental Health

Social media has been linked to negative effects on mental health, including increased feelings of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

The constant comparison to others and the pressure to present a perfect image can lead to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem.

Additionally, the addictive nature of social media can lead to decreased productivity and disrupted sleep patterns. It’s important to be mindful of our social media use and take breaks when necessary to prioritize our mental health.

The Importance of Setting Boundaries and Taking Breaks

With the constant stream of notifications and updates, it can be easy to get lost in the world of social media.

However, it’s important to set boundaries and take breaks to prioritize our mental health. This can include turning off notifications during certain times of the day, limiting social media use to a certain amount of time per day, or taking a complete break from social media for a period of time.

By setting these boundaries and taking breaks, we can reduce the negative effects of social media on our mental health and improve our overall well-being.

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TED is supported by ads and partners 00:00

Social Media is Making Us Unsocial

Allison Graham – How social media makes us unsocial – TEDxSMU 2014

Social Media historian Allison Graham offers a witty and ironic view of a society that feels alone together despite the hundreds of virtual connections we have online. With a global population growing up via Facebook and Twitter and a perceptible shift in human interpersonal connections, the constant need for social self-validation permeates our daily existence. This talk shares the funny and revealing insights of a life lived online and how social media is used to connect and disconnect us.

A graduate of Southern Methodist University, Allison has worked all over the country and globe bringing the written word to life on the big screen. Allison has worked for Artisan Entertainment, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema, 20th Century Fox, Miramax and Dreamworks SKG as Assistant Director, Production Manager, and Producer working with such titans as Jerry Bruckheimer, Michael Bay, Timur Bekmamvetov and Tim Burton.  She was one of the key business strategists behind The Blair Witch Franchise marketing campaigns, leading the team responsible for revolutionizing the way the Internet and film marketing were viewed.

Allison enjoys cooking from scratch, bicycle rides on flat terrain, conga lines and diving boards.

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Why social media has changed the world — and how to fix it

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Are you on social media a lot? When is the last time you checked Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram? Last night? Before breakfast? Five minutes ago?

If so, you are not alone — which is the point, of course. Humans are highly social creatures. Our brains have become wired to process social information, and we usually feel better when we are connected. Social media taps into this tendency.

“Human brains have essentially evolved because of sociality more than any other thing,” says Sinan Aral, an MIT professor and expert in information technology and marketing. “When you develop a population-scale technology that delivers social signals to the tune of trillions per day in real-time, the rise of social media isn’t unexpected. It’s like tossing a lit match into a pool of gasoline.”

The numbers make this clear. In 2005, about 7 percent of American adults used social media. But by 2017, 80 percent of American adults used Facebook alone. About 3.5 billion people on the planet, out of 7.7 billion, are active social media participants. Globally, during a typical day, people post 500 million tweets, share over 10 billion pieces of Facebook content, and watch over a billion hours of YouTube video.

As social media platforms have grown, though, the once-prevalent, gauzy utopian vision of online community has disappeared. Along with the benefits of easy connectivity and increased information, social media has also become a vehicle for disinformation and political attacks from beyond sovereign borders.

“Social media disrupts our elections, our economy, and our health,” says Aral, who is the David Austin Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Now Aral has written a book about it. In “The Hype Machine,” published this month by Currency, a Random House imprint, Aral details why social media platforms have become so successful yet so problematic, and suggests ways to improve them.

As Aral notes, the book covers some of the same territory as “The Social Dilemma,” a documentary that is one of the most popular films on Netflix at the moment. But Aral’s book, as he puts it, "starts where ‘The Social Dilemma’ leaves off and goes one step further to ask: What can we do about it?”

“This machine exists in every facet of our lives,” Aral says. “And the question in the book is, what do we do? How do we achieve the promise of this machine and avoid the peril? We’re at a crossroads. What we do next is essential, so I want to equip people, policymakers, and platforms to help us achieve the good outcomes and avoid the bad outcomes.”

When “engagement” equals anger

“The Hype Machine” draws on Aral’s own research about social networks, as well as other findings, from the cognitive sciences, computer science, business, politics, and more. Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles, for instance, have found that people obtain bigger hits of dopamine — the chemical in our brains highly bound up with motivation and reward — when their social media posts receive more likes.

At the same time, consider a 2018 MIT study by Soroush Vosoughi, an MIT PhD student and now an assistant professor of computer science at Dartmouth College; Deb Roy, MIT professor of media arts and sciences and executive director of the MIT Media Lab; and Aral, who has been studying social networking for 20 years. The three researchers found that on Twitter, from 2006 to 2017, false news stories were 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than true ones. Why? Most likely because false news has greater novelty value compared to the truth, and provokes stronger reactions — especially disgust and surprise.

In this light, the essential tension surrounding social media companies is that their platforms gain audiences and revenue when posts provoke strong emotional responses, often based on dubious content.

“This is a well-designed, well-thought-out machine that has objectives it maximizes,” Aral says. “The business models that run the social-media industrial complex have a lot to do with the outcomes we’re seeing — it’s an attention economy, and businesses want you engaged. How do they get engagement? Well, they give you little dopamine hits, and … get you riled up. That’s why I call it the hype machine. We know strong emotions get us engaged, so [that favors] anger and salacious content.”

From Russia to marketing

“The Hype Machine” explores both the political implications and business dimensions of social media in depth. Certainly social media is fertile terrain for misinformation campaigns. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Russia spread  false information to at least 126 million people on Facebook and another 20 million people on Insta­gram (which Facebook owns), and was responsible for 10 million tweets. About 44 percent of adult Americans visited a false news source in the final weeks of the campaign.

“I think we need to be a lot more vigilant than we are,” says Aral.

We do not know if Russia’s efforts altered the outcome of the 2016 election, Aral says, though they may have been fairly effective. Curiously, it is not clear if the same is true of most U.S. corporate engagement efforts.

As Aral examines, digital advertising on most big U.S. online platforms is often wildly ineffective, with academic studies showing that the “lift” generated by ad campaigns — the extent to which they affect consumer action — has been overstated by a factor of hundreds, in some cases. Simply counting clicks on ads is not enough. Instead, online engagement tends to be more effective among new consumers, and when it is targeted well; in that sense, there is a parallel between good marketing and guerilla social media campaigns.

“The two questions I get asked the most these days,” Aral says, “are, one, did Russia succeed in intervening in our democracy? And two, how do I measure the ROI [return on investment] from marketing investments? As I was writing this book, I realized the answer to those two questions is the same.”

Ideas for improvement

“The Hype Machine” has received praise from many commentators. Foster Provost, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, says it is a “masterful integration of science, business, law, and policy.” Duncan Watts, a university professor at the University of Pennsylvania, says the book is “essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how we got here and how we can get somewhere better.”

In that vein, “The Hype Machine” has several detailed suggestions for improving social media. Aral favors automated and user-generated labeling of false news, and limiting revenue-collection that is based on false content. He also calls for firms to help scholars better research the issue of election interference.

Aral believes federal privacy measures could be useful, if we learn from the benefits and missteps of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and a new California law that lets consumers stop some data-sharing and allows people to find out what information companies have stored about them. He does not endorse breaking up Facebook, and suggests instead that the social media economy needs structural reform. He calls for data portability and interoperability, so “consumers would own their identities and could freely switch from one network to another.” Aral believes that without such fundamental changes, new platforms will simply replace the old ones, propelled by the network effects that drive the social-media economy.

“I do not advocate any one silver bullet,” says Aral, who emphasizes that changes in four areas together — money, code, norms, and laws — can alter the trajectory of the social media industry.

But if things continue without change, Aral adds, Facebook and the other social media giants risk substantial civic backlash and user burnout.

“If you get me angry and riled up, I might click more in the short term, but I might also grow really tired and annoyed by how this is making my life miserable, and I might turn you off entirely,” Aral observes. “I mean, that’s why we have a Delete Facebook movement, that’s why we have a Stop Hate for Profit movement. People are pushing back against the short-term vision, and I think we need to embrace this longer-term vision of a healthier communications ecosystem.”

Changing the social media giants can seem like a tall order. Still, Aral says, these firms are not necessarily destined for domination.

“I don’t think this technology or any other technology has some deterministic endpoint,” Aral says. “I want to bring us back to a more practical reality, which is that technology is what we make it, and we are abdicating our responsibility to steer technology toward good and away from bad. That is the path I try to illuminate in this book.”

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Press mentions.

Prof. Sinan Aral’s new book, “The Hype Machine,” has been selected as one of the best books of the year about AI by Wired . Gilad Edelman notes that Aral’s book is “an engagingly written shortcut to expertise on what the likes of Facebook and Twitter are doing to our brains and our society.”

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with Danny Crichton of TechCrunch about his new book, “The Hype Machine,” which explores the future of social media. Aral notes that he believes a starting point “for solving the social media crisis is creating competition in the social media economy.” 

New York Times

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with New York Times editorial board member Greg Bensinger about how social media platforms can reduce the spread of misinformation. “Human-in-the-loop moderation is the right solution,” says Aral. “It’s not a simple silver bullet, but it would give accountability where these companies have in the past blamed software.”

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with Kara Miller of GBH’s Innovation Hub about his research examining the impact of social media on everything from business re-openings during the Covid-19 pandemic to politics.

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with NPR’s Michael Martin about his new book, “The Hype Machine,” which explores the benefits and downfalls posed by social media. “I've been researching social media for 20 years. I've seen its evolution and also the techno utopianism and dystopianism,” says Aral. “I thought it was appropriate to have a book that asks, 'what can we do to really fix the social media morass we find ourselves in?'”

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Unsocial Media: The Real Effects of More Screen Time

Loss of real-life interaction hampers social development..

Posted April 25, 2022 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

• A significant amount of real-life social interaction seems essential for the development of emotional and personal skills.
• Research suggests that today's youth has about half the exposure to critical real-life social interaction that pre-internet generations did.
• Trends in poor social development among young people suggest the need for urgent attention and specific strategies to enhance social competence.

Way back in the last millennium, one of my early psychology teachers told me how he had just finished some research suggesting that people who were in a “weaker” position in a negotiation opted for phone calls over in-person meetings. The assumption was that a telephone could cover up the non-verbal cues that might give away their weaker negotiating position.

If a telephone allows a person to hide important communication cues, what about the omnipresent text message? IMHO a text message reveals none of the subtleties of communication – LOL. The presence of emojis is testimony to the fact that such non-verbal information is important but needs to be, and can be, fabricated. And is your emotional response to an emoji the same as it is to a real emotion genuinely expressed by a person standing in front of you?

How Real Is Virtual Interaction?

And at the dawning of the age of Zoom, how realistic is virtual communication? What is missing? Is critical social and emotional information accurately reflected when people are, for example, seated in front of a green screen that shows them floating in outer space or talking to you from the top of the Himalayas?

Perhaps these issues make interesting reading but are really of no consequence. After all, virtual meetings are not only here to stay but will soon threaten to change “reality” altogether.

However, evidence is mounting that such virtual communication is wreaking developmental havoc on the generation who were born into the internet age.

The Mental State of the World

Sapien Labs is a non-profit organization that conducts research on mental health throughout the world. Their recent Mental State of the World Report shows some very concerning trends that reflect other data collected by a variety of organizations in the last few years.

In previous similar studies, Stone et al (2010) reported 2008 data that showed the 18-24 year age group was amongst the happiest and well-adjusted groups across the age spectrum. Along the same lines, Keyes et al., (2019) showed a decline in depression amongst this age group from 1991 to 2011—but by 2018, the trend had reversed. Twenge et al (2018) reported that depression and suicide rates increased between 2010 and 2015, especially amongst females and one other group: those who were most active on social media .

While there presumably are numerous explanations for this decline in mental health and increase in suicide rates, numerous studies have focused on social media as a possible cause.

In a large national sample of 40,337 children and adolescents, Twenge et al. (2018) found that:

“Among 14- to 17-year-olds, high users of screens (7+ h/day vs. low users of 1 h/day) were more than twice as likely to ever have been diagnosed with depression, ever diagnosed with anxiety , treated by a mental health professional, or have taken medication for a psychological or behavioral issue) in the last 12 months.”

In another study, Kelly et al (2018) reported, “Greater social media use is related to online harassment, poor sleep, low self-esteem , and poor body image ; in turn, these related to higher depressive symptom scores.”

Sapien Labs uses their own Mental Health Quotient (MHQ) that measures a number of mental health variables on a continuous 300-point scale, where each of the 6 categories is divided into 50-point units: Distressed—Struggling—Enduring—Managing—Succeeding—Thriving.

In their 2021 report based on more than 223,000 responses from 34 countries, Sapien Labs found some distressing trends.

The Enhanced Challenges of Adolescence

The youngest group, 18-24 year-olds, had the worst mental health scores. In fact, an astonishing 44% of this group were “distressed” or “struggling” with their mental health, a finding that was independent of region or country. This compares to just 19% of this age group who were “succeeding” or “thriving."

The areas where the scores were the lowest appeared in two categories: Social Self and Mood and Outlook. The most common complaints were feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and distress.

One reason why higher screen use is related to depression and poorer scores of social self, like low self-confidence and anxiety, is that such usage has replaced real-life interaction that is critical in developing a number of skills, like understanding another’s emotional state and interpreting non-verbal behaviors. Tara Thiagarajan, founder and chief scientist at Sapien, estimates that heavy users of screens have about half the exposure to critical real-life social interaction that pre-internet generations did, potentially rendering an 18-year-old today at the social skill level of a pre-internet 10-year-old.

This might indicate that it’s not so much the massive amounts of screen time per se but the loss of real-life interaction that hampers social development and elevates typical adolescent uncertainty to new levels of mental dysfunction.

More research will help unravel the dangers of high levels of virtual interaction, especially for those who have grown up with technology constantly at their fingertips. In the meantime, anyone involved with children and adolescents needs to ensure that technology does not rob this generation of natural and real-life social interactions, which is how we learn the fundamentals of relating to others and to ourselves.

Mental State of the World Report 2021. Tara Thiagarajan and Jennifer Newsom. Sapien Labs.

https://sapienlabs.org/publications/

Kelly, Y., Zilanawala, A., Booker, C., and Sacker, A. (2018). Social Media Use and Adolescent Mental Health: Findings From the UK Millennium Cohort Study. eClinicalMedicine 6, 59-68. doi: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2018.12.005.

Stone, A.A., Schwartz, J.E., Broderick, J.E., and Deaton, A. (2010). A snapshot of the age distribution of psychological well-being in the United States. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 107(22), 9985-9990. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1003744107.

Twenge, J.M., and Campbell, W.K. (2018). Associations between screen time and lower psychological wellbeing among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study. Preventive medicine reports 12, 271-283. doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2018.10.003.

Twenge, J.W., Joiner, T., Rogers, M.L., & Martin, G. (2018) Increases in Depressive Symptoms, Suicide-Related Outcomes, and Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents After 2010 and Links to Increased New Media Screen Time Clinical Psychological Science (2018)

Howard J. Rankin, Ph.D., has advanced degrees in clinical psychology from the University of London and is an author, consultant, and podcast host. He has written, co-written, or ghostwritten more than 50 nonfiction books.

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June 20, 2022

Why Social Media Makes People Unhappy—And Simple Ways to Fix It

Research suggests platform designs make us lose track of time spent on them and can heighten conflicts, and then we feel upset with ourselves

By Daisy Yuhas

Matthew Holland

Disrupted sleep, lower life satisfaction and poor self-esteem are just a few of the negative mental health consequences that researchers have linked to social media. Somehow the same platforms that can help people feel more connected and knowledgeable also contribute to loneliness and disinformation. What succeeds and fails, scientists say, is a function of how these platforms are designed. Amanda Baughan, a graduate student specializing in human-computer interaction at the University of Washington, studies how social media triggers what psychologists call dissociation, or a state of reduced self-reflection and narrowed attention. She presented results at the 2022 Association for Computing Machinery Computer-Human Interaction Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Baughan spoke with Mind Matters editor Daisy Yuhas to explain how and why apps need to change to give the people who use them greater power.

[ An edited transcript of the interview follows .]

You’ve shown how changing social media cues and presentations could improve well-being, even when people strongly disagree on issues. Can you give an example?

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The design of social media can have a lot of power in how people interact with one another and how they feel about their online experiences. For example, we’ve found that social media design can actually help people feel more supportive and kind in moments of online conflict, provided there’s a little bit of a nudge to behave that way. In one study, we designed an intervention that encouraged people who start talking about something contentious in a comment thread to switch to direct messaging. People really liked it . It helped to resolve their conflict and replicated a solution we use in-person: people having a public argument move to a private space to work things out.

You’ve also tackled a different problem coming out of social media usage called the 30-Minute Ick Factor. What is that?

We very quickly lose ourselves on social media. When people encounter a platform where they can infinitely scroll for more information, it can trigger a similar neurocognitive reward system as in anticipating a winning lottery ticket or getting food. It’s a powerful way that these apps are designed to keep us checking and scrolling.

The 30-Minute Ick Factor is when people mean to check their social media briefly but then find that 30 minutes have passed, and when they realize how much time they have spent, they have this sense of disgust and disappointment in themselves. Research has shown that people are dissatisfied with this habitual social media use. A lot of people frame it as meaningless, unproductive or addictive.

You’ve argued this experience is less a matter of addiction and more an issue of dissociation. Why?

Dissociation is a psychological process that comes in many forms. In the most common, everyday dissociation, your mind is so absorbed that you are disconnected from your actions. You could be doing the dishes, start daydreaming and not pay attention to how you are doing the dishes. Or you might seek immersive experiences—watching a movie, reading a book or playing a game—that pass the time and cause you to forget where you are.

During these activities, your sense of reflective self-consciousness and the passage of time is reduced. People only realize that they dissociated in hindsight. Attention is restored with the sense of “What just happened?” or “My leg fell asleep while we were watching that movie!”

Dissociation can be a positive thing, especially if it’s an absorbing experience, meaningful activity or a needed break. But it can also be harmful in certain cases, as in gambling, or come in conflict with people’s time-management goals, as with social media scrolling.

How do you measure people’s dissociation on social media?

We worked with 43 participants who used a custom mobile app that we created called Chirp to access their Twitter accounts. The app let people interact with Twitter content while allowing us to ask them questions and test interventions. So when people were using Chirp, after a given number of minutes, we would send them a questionnaire based on a psychological scale for measuring dissociation. We asked how much they agreed with the statement “I am currently using Chirp without really paying attention to what I’m doing” on a scale of 1 to 5. We also did interviews with 11 people to learn more. The results showed dissociation occurred in 42 percent of our participants, and they regularly reported losing track of time or feeling “all-consumed.”

You designed four interventions that modified people’s Twitter experience on Chirp to reduce dissociation. What worked?

The most successful were custom lists and reading history labels. In custom lists, we forced users to categorize the content they followed, such as “sports” or “news” or “friends.” Then, instead of interacting with Twitter’s main feed, they engaged only with content on these lists. This approach was coupled with a reading history intervention in which people received a message when they were caught up on the newest tweets. Rather than continuing to scroll, they were alerted to what they had already seen, and so they focused on just the newest content. Those interventions reduced dissociation, and when we did interviews, people said they felt safer checking their social media accounts when these modifications were present.

In another design, people received timed messages letting them know how long they had been on Chirp and suggesting they leave. They also had the option of viewing a usage page that showed them statistics such as how much time they’d spent on Chirp in the past seven days. These two solutions were effective if people opted to use them. Many people ignored them, however. Also, they thought the timed messages were annoying. Those findings are interesting because a lot of the popular time-management tools available to people look like these time-out and usage notifications.

So what could social media companies be doing differently? And is there any incentive for them to change?

Right now there is a lot working against people who use social media. It’s impossible to ever fully catch up on a social media feed, especially when you consider the algorithmically inserted content such as Twitter’s trending tweets or TikTok’s “For You” page. But I think that there is hope that relatively simple tweaks to social media design, such as custom lists, can make a difference. It’s important to note that the custom lists significantly reduced dissociation for people—but they did not significantly affect time spent using the app. To me, that points out that reducing people’s dissociation may not be as antithetical to social media companies’ revenue goals as we might intuitively think.

What’s most important for people using social media now to know?

First, don’t pile a bunch of shame onto your social media habits. Thousands of people are employed to make you swipe your thumb up on that screen and keep you doing what you’re doing. Let’s shift the responsibility of designing safe and fulfilling experiences from users to the companies.

Second, get familiar with the well-being tools that are already offered. TikTok has a feature that, every hour, will tell you that you’ve been scrolling for a while and should consider a break. On Twitter, custom lists are a feature that already exists; it’s just not the default option. If more people start using these tools, it could convince these companies to refine them.

Most important, vote for people who are interested in regulating technology because I think that’s where we’re going to see the biggest changes made.

Is social media making us un-social?

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Does Social Media Make Us More or Less Connected?

Is social media strengthening our communities, or is it actually harming our ability to connect in person? Students  discuss two readings about the pros and cons of social media engagement, including some research on this question. 

• social media

To the Teacher

At its core, social media holds out the promise of connection. A key idea behind Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and other platforms is that we can create rich networks of friends, receive frequent updates from people in our lives, and build a sense of community.

On sites such as Facebook, it is common for someone to have hundreds of “friends.” Yet, in reality, the experience does not always live up to the hype. Despite this ever-present promise of community, many people feel isolated and alone. Although people may have hundreds or even thousands of online “friends,” they may have few actual people in real life that they can rely on. All of this raises the question, is social media strengthening our communities, or is spending time on our phones and computers actually harming our ability to connect in person?

This lesson consists of two readings. The first reading explores the experience of connection online, asking whether or not social media helps make us feel more connected to one another. The second reading examines the data regarding how social media affects our mental health, looking at studies of the possible positive and negative effects of social media usage, especially for young people. Questions for discussion follow each reading.  

Note:  This lesson is Part 1 of a series of lessons on social media.

• Part 1:  Does Social Media Make Us More or Less Connected ?
• Part 2: Social Media and the Future of Democracy
• Part 3: Can We Protect Our Privacy on Social Media?

Ask students to share one word or reaction they have when they hear the phrase “social media.”

Alternatively, make a visual web of their reactions by writing the term “social media” in the center of the board, circling it, then asking students for their associations with the phrase. Write down students’ associations without comment in the space surrounding the circled phrase, and connect their words with a line to the center. Once responses have slowed, step back and look at the web. 

Ask students: What patterns do you see here? What does this web say about our reactions to social media?

Tell students that today we’ll read and discuss two short pieces about social media and its impact, both positive and negative.  

Reading One: Experiencing Connection, On and Off-Line  

At its core, social media holds out the promise of connection. A key idea behind Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and other platforms is that we can create rich networks of friends, receive frequent updates from people in our lives, and build a sense of community. On sites such as Facebook, it is not uncommon for someone to have hundreds of “friends.” Yet, in reality, the experience does not always live up to the hype. Despite this ever-present promise of community, many people feel isolated and alone. Although people may have hundreds or even thousands of online “friends,” they may have few actual people in real life that they can rely on.

All of this raises the question, is social media strengthening our communities, or is spending time on our phones and computers actually harming our ability to connect in person?

One commonly held view holds that spending too much time on social media is detrimental. Many influential people—ranging from Pope Francis, to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to actress and singer Selena Gomez—have warned that overuse of social media can be harmful and isolating. In a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, Michelle Obama stated , “We have to get off the phone and knock on doors and talk to each other face to face…. We can’t rely on the internet to tell us about the world.”

For reasons like these, people of all ages have begun limiting their time on social media and focusing instead on building relationships in real life. In a 2017 article, Teen Vogue’s Beauty and Health Director Jessica Matlin documented the increase in young people logging off. She writes about a student named Faith, 17, who moved from a Philadelphia suburb to a new school in New York City. Faith said that it was hard to make friends. She felt insecure about this, so she used her phone to share stories to make it seem to her friends back home that she was making lots of friends and having a great time. “In reality, I was struggling,” she said. The story goes on to tell Faith’s story since then:

 Now that [Faith has] found her own crew, she’s grown more skeptical about social media. She also doesn’t feel compelled to get it all on film. At a Coldplay show, she sang instead of Snapped (“I’d rather enjoy the music”), and sitting down to a recent dinner, she and her friends piled their phones in the middle of the table (“It made the night so much better”).... “Young adults are beginning to take a more mindful approach to social media,” says Jacqueline Nesi, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies teens and social media. “This may explain the rise in apps like SelfControl and Anti-Social.” (Both prevent you from falling into a Facebook hole.) And that no-phones-at-dinner policy? Nesi says we are likely to see it popping up on more tables…. Ananda, 17, had the kind of Insta-following that any start-up would kill for. Before long, it became a total chore. What started as a place to share vegan recipes and cute outfits quickly became her “brand,” something that demanded daily upkeep. Her fans constantly direct-messaged her with praise and invites to meet up. “It was really sweet,” she says. “At the same time, it was so time- and energy-consuming—it wasn’t how I want to build friendships.” As she started posting less, her following dropped. (“That gave me anxiety,” she says.) Finally, she just closed her account. “I do miss it, but I have time to spend with my real friends.” “Social media relationships aren’t real relationships,” says Faith. “It’s always weird when you see someone who follows you and you follow back, but you don’t say ‘hi’ to each other when you see them in real life.” [ https://www.teenvogue.com/story/why-young-adults-are-taking-a-more-mindful-approach-to-social-media ]  

Despite such testimonies to the benefits of taking breaks from social media, not everyone agrees that online community is inherently unhealthy—or that offline friendships should count as being a valuable part on one’s “real life,” while online connections are disregarded. For years, young people have maintained that social media can provide real connection. In a 2018 article for The Washington Post, Common Sense Media parenting editor Caroline Knorr offered five benefits of social media. She wrote:

For a few years, many teens have been saying that social media — despite its flaws — is mostly positive . And new research is shedding light on the good things that can happen when kids connect, share and learn online. As kids begin to use tools such as Instagram , Snapchat , Twitter and even YouTube in earnest, they’re learning the responsibility that comes with the power to broadcast to the world…. It lets them do good. Twitter, Facebook and other large social networks expose kids to important issues and people from all over the world. Kids realize they have a voice they didn’t have before and are doing everything from crowdfunding social justice projects to anonymously tweeting positive thoughts …. It strengthens friendships. Studies, including Common Sense Media’s “ Social Media, Social Life: How Teens View Their Digital Lives ” and the Pew Research Center’s “Teens, Technology and Friendships” show that social media helps teenagers make friends and keep them. It can offer a sense of belonging. While heavy social media use can isolate kids, a study conducted by Griffith University and the University of Queensland in Australia found that although American teens have fewer friends than their historical counterparts, they are less lonely than teens in past decades . They report feeling less isolated and have become more socially adept, partly because of an increase in technology use.... Online acceptance — whether a kid is interested in an unusual subject that isn’t considered cool or is grappling with sexual identity — can validate a marginalized child…. One example occurred on a Minecraft forum on Reddit when an entire online community used voice-conferencing software to talk a teenager out of committing suicide . [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2018/03/19/5-ways-social-media-can-be-good-for-teens/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.74d64c1a442a ]  

Such arguments suggest that social media use can have both positive and negative aspects. Whether we experience it as helpful or harmful has a lot to do with how we engage, who we relate with, and what boundaries we decide to set for ourselves in our daily lives. Instead of passively accepting the platforms as they are, we can be critical in how we engage, recognizing that if social media offers the promise of community, it is a community that we must create for ourselves.

For Discussion

• How much of the material in this reading was new to you, and how much was already familiar? Do you have any questions about what you read?  
• What are your reactions to Faith’s story about cutting back on social media and feeling closer to friends? Does her story resonate with you – or not?  
• Have you ever agreed to stow your phones when you’re having a get-together with friends? If so, what effect did it have?  
• If you use social media, do you take breaks from it? Why or why not?  
• What are your thoughts about the five benefits of social media cited in the Washington Post? Do they resonate with you? Why or why not?  
• What are some arguments that social media decreases meaningful connection? Have you experienced any of these trends in your community?  
• What are some arguments that social increases connection and has positive benefits? Do these ring true in your experience?  
• Do you see generational differences in how different people look at the appropriate use of social media platforms? How would you characterize how your views might differ from those of your parents or teachers?

Reading Two: The Research on Social Media and Mental Health  

Reports about people’s experiences on social media are often anecdotal. They rely on individual stories about how a given user might feel. But can we get a bigger picture take on social media’s overall effect? What does the research say about social media’s impact on our mental well-being?

In an article in the September 2017 issue of The Atlantic entitled “Has the Smartphone Destroyed a Generation?,” San Diego State psychology professor Jean Twenge examined some this research. Focusing most of her attention on the more negative impacts of social media on mental health, Twenge generated a media firestorm with her portrait of how social media increases our isolation. She wrote:

The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health. These changes have affected young people in every corner of the nation and in every type of household. The trends appear among teens poor and rich; of every ethnic background; in cities, suburbs, and small towns. Where there are cell towers, there are teens living their lives on their smartphone…. Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones…. The Monitoring the Future survey, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and designed to be nationally representative, has asked 12th-graders more than 1,000 questions every year since 1975 and queried eighth- and 10th-graders since 1991. The survey asks teens how happy they are and also how much of their leisure time they spend on various activities, including nonscreen activities such as in-person social interaction and exercise, and, in recent years, screen activities such as using social media, texting, and browsing the web. The results could not be clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy. There’s not a single exception. All screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness. Eighth-graders who spend 10 or more hours a week on social media are 56 percent more likely to say they’re unhappy than those who devote less time to social media. Admittedly, 10 hours a week is a lot. But those who spend six to nine hours a week on social media are still 47 percent more likely to say they are unhappy than those who use social media even less. The opposite is true of in-person interactions. Those who spend an above-average amount of time with their friends in person are 20 percent less likely to say they’re unhappy than those who hang out for a below-average amount of time…. Teens who spend three hours a day or more on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, such as making a suicide plan. (That’s much more than the risk related to, say, watching TV.) [ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/ ]  

Twenge’s article, shared by many concerned parents, prompted a wave of responses from other psychologists. Many noted that the research is more nuanced than the uproar around the inflammatory article made it seem. In a 2017 article for Psychology Today entitled “No, Smartphones are Not Destroying a Generation,” Assumption College psychology professor Sara Rose Cavanaugh questioned whether smartphones and social media were purely negative in their effects.

Emerging evidence indicates that like every other question psychologists can think to ask about human behavior, screen use and its association with psychological well-being varies based on a multitude of contextual and personal variables—for instance, how you use media, when you use it, and what else is going on in your life… [One study] by Andrew K. Przybylski and Netta Weinstein uses a careful design that takes into account these sorts of factors and concludes that "moderate use of digital technology is not intrinsically harmful and may be advantageous in a connected world." Nowhere is Twenge's bias more obvious to me than in some research that she actually does review but then casts aside as seemingly irrelevant to her thesis... In the introduction to the piece she notes that this generation has sharply lower rates of alcohol use, teen pregnancies, unprotected sex , smoking , and car accidents than previous generations. This is what a destroyed generation looks like?  Moreover, there is good reason to think that smartphones and social media may have positive effects as well as negative effects. Routinely feeling connected to your social peers could have beneficial effects.... For instance, teens can find other teens interested in the same social movements, connect with teens across the globe on interests like music and fashion, and feel embedded in a social network filled with meaning. [ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/once-more-feeling/201708/no-smartphones-are-not-destroying-generation ]  

Twenge herself acknowledges that social media may have contributed a decrease in some behaviors that have traditionally made parents and guardians anxious, writing that “Some generational changes are positive, some are negative, and many are both. More comfortable in their bedrooms than in a car or at a party, today’s teens are physically safer than teens have ever been. They’re markedly less likely to get into a car accident and, having less of a taste for alcohol than their predecessors, are less susceptible to drinking’s attendant ills.”

A final point to consider in the debate over social media and mental health is that the platforms themselves have agendas--since companies like Twitter, Snapchat, and Facebook make more money when people use them more, regardless of the impact on happiness or mental health. In a 2018 article for the BBC, investigative reporter Hilary Andersson argued that social media companies are deliberately addicting users to their products for financial gain.

"Behind every screen on your phone, there are generally like literally a thousand engineers that have worked on this thing to try to make it maximally addicting" [said former Mozilla and Jawbone employee Aza Raskin.] In 2006 Mr Raskin, a leading technology engineer himself, designed infinite scroll , one of the features of many apps that is now seen as highly habit forming. At the time, he was working for Humanized - a computer user-interface consultancy. Infinite scroll allows users to endlessly swipe down through content without clicking. "If you don't give your brain time to catch up with your impulses," Mr Raskin said, "you just keep scrolling." He said the innovation kept users looking at their phones far longer than necessary.  Mr Raskin said he had not set out to addict people and now felt guilty about it. But, he said, many designers were driven to create addictive app features by the business models of the big companies that employed them. "In order to get the next round of funding, in order to get your stock price up, the amount of time that people spend on your app has to go up," he said…."So, when you put that much pressure on that one number, you're going to start trying to invent new ways of getting people to stay hooked." "You have a business model designed to engage you and get you to basically suck as much time out of your life as possible and then selling that attention to advertisers." Facebook told the BBC that its products were designed "to bring people closer to their friends, family, and the things they care about.” It said that "at no stage does wanting something to be addictive factor into that process".... [Yet] last year Facebook's founding president, Sean Parker, said publicly that the company set out to consume as much user time as possible. He claimed it was "exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology." [ https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44640959 ]  

Ultimately, promises of connection offered by social media platforms are sales pitches. But real community is not a product that people can buy. Whether or not we use technology in creating our own communities, we can be aware that the platforms we might choose to use are by no means neutral.

• According to the article, what does research indicate about the impacts of social media on young people?  
• Does the article reflect your own sense of social media’s impact?    
• Some critics argued that the article entitled, “Has the Smartphone Destroyed a Generation?” was unduly sensationalist. What did you think?  
• Do you think social media is partly to blame for rising rates of depression and anxiety among young people? Why or why not?  
• What possible changes could be made in apps to make them less addicting?  
• Are there any changes you would make in how social media platforms are structured?

Ask for volunteers to share one thing they like about social media, and one thing they think should change about social media.

Research assistance provided by John Bergen.

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Effects of Social Media — Social Media Makes Us Less Social: Causes And Solution

Social Media Makes Us Less Social: Causes and Solution

• Categories: Effects of Social Media Socialization

About this sample

Words: 717 |

Published: Dec 16, 2021

Words: 717 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

• Anderson, M., & Jiang, J. (2018). Teens, social media & technology 2018. Pew Research Center, 31(2018), 1673-1689. (https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/)
• Madianou, M., & Miller, D. (2013). Polymedia: Towards a new theory of digital media in interpersonal communication. International journal of cultural studies , 16(2), 169-187. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1367877912452486)
• Jensen, K. B. (2010). Media convergence: The three degrees of network, mass and interpersonal communication. Routledge. (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203855485/media-convergence-klaus-bruhn-jensen)
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