For young adults, limiting social media use doesn't improve well-being
What happens when young adults are asked to slash their social media use to 30 minutes a day? In a new set of studies, most did not follow through, and those who did cut back reported no greater improvement in well-being than their peers who used social media as usual.
A new study challenges the belief that limiting social media usage to 30 minutes a day can improve well-being among young adults. Researchers from Carleton University found that most participants struggled to adhere to the reduced usage and did not experience any significant improvement in mental health compared to those who continued using social media as usual.
The study, published in a forthcoming Clinical Psychological Science paper, highlights the difficulties in testing this idea due to low adherence rates. Andrea Howard, the senior author and developmental psychologist, notes that social media serves multiple purposes beyond entertainment, making it harder to isolate its effects. While the findings don't definitively prove that reducing social media can never be beneficial, the low adherence rates make it unclear what would happen if participants significantly cut back on usage.
The study, which involved 644 iPhone users aged 18-30, recruited individuals from various backgrounds and tested several variations of the intervention, but none yielded meaningful improvements in well-being compared to controls. Howard emphasizes that for those who feel their social media usage is problematic, a personalized approach may still be beneficial.
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