Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
A study published in Nature Human Behaviour looks at social media use in adolescents with and without mental health conditions.
Prof Chris Ferguson, Professor of Psychology, Stetson University, said:
“Overall, I find this to be a basic, but overall well-done study by a reputable research group. There are some limits to this study, which the authors themselves acknowledge. The data is self-report, and that has been shown to sometimes relate to false positive correlations in some studies. I found the evidence overall to be rather inconsistent and hard to interpret as making any kind of solid conclusion one way or another. Most of the effect sizes are very, very small so that even if they are unlikely to be statistical noise, they are probably still too small to base any firm conclusions or policy on. Overall, I’d say there may be very tiny differences in some behaviours, between kids with or without mental health symptoms and their social media use. But, overall, these are pretty gossamer and much less critical than most of the public has tended to think.”
‘Social media use in adolescents with and without mental health conditions’ by Luisa Fassi et al. was published in Nature Human Behaviour at 16:00 UK time on Monday 5th May.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02134-4
Declared interests
Prof Chris Ferguson: No declarations