Does Social Media Use Increase Depressive Symptoms? A Reverse Causation Perspective

“, depression, low self-esteem, perfectionism) to view social media as a means to reaffirm their self-worth through social comparisons and seeking social validation (23).”

“For instance, the haste to pass social media a guilty verdict might stem from moral panic brought about by the fear of contemporary technology (20), where the third-person effect in which individuals overattribute certain behaviors to the influence of mass communication (21) is a possible catalyst.”

“Meta-analyses of crosssectional studies on social media use and depression also report small pooled effect sizes (9, 11, 12), suggesting the presence of extraneous variables.”

“Although the link between social media use and depression is contentious (16, 17), several have nonetheless implicated social media as pervasive and detrimental to psychological well-being.”

“For instance, some studies have been argued that social media may harm users by exposing them to negative stimuli such as unwholesome content, cyberbullying, unhealthy social comparisons, and feelings of inferiority (18, 19).”

“(43) demonstrated that limiting social media use to 30min daily alleviated loneliness and depressive symptoms over a span of 3 weeks.”

“The sociocognitive model of internet addiction (24) similarly proposes that because online and social media stimuli can be psychologically rewarding, people are incentivized to stay engaged, but those with poorer self-regulation (e.”

“More prolonged studies spanning 8 or 9 years have further corroborated the view that frequency of social media use does not longitudinally predict depressive symptoms in adolescents even when studied across developmental periods from adolescence to young adulthood (31, 32).”

“A bidirectional relationship may also exist due to a cascading feedback loop whereby depression engenders compensatory social media use, which in turn aggravates depressive symptoms due to unhealthy social comparisons and other detrimental forms of social interaction (37, 38).”

“Longitudinal Findings While longitudinal designs alone do not provide grounds for causal conclusions, they at least allow the temporal ordering of key variables to be determined (29).”

“passive engagement, and degree of addiction or problematic use, which have exhibited asynchronous associations with depressive symptoms (46).”

“For instance, some studies have been argued that social media may harm users by exposing them to negative stimuli such as unwholesome content, cyberbullying, unhealthy social comparisons, and feelings of inferiority (18, 19).”

“Although the link between social media use and depression is contentious (16, 17), several have nonetheless implicated social media as pervasive and detrimental to psychological well-being.”

“Researchers seeking to understand this prevalence of depression in modern society have identified social media use as a key risk factor (8, 9).”

“The heavy reliance on correlational data severely limits our ability to infer directionality and argue that exposure to social media causes depression (11, 22).”

“Second, although retrospective self-reports of adolescents’ social media use are most commonly employed, they may be biased and suffer from underestimation (48).”

“Hence, future longitudinal work should employ objective data logs or screen-time apps as measures of social media frequency (49).”

“(30) found that baseline frequency of social media use did not predict increased daily depressive symptoms at 1- to 2-year followup in a demographically representative sample of adolescents.”

“For instance, the haste to pass social media a guilty verdict might stem from moral panic brought about by the fear of contemporary technology (20), where the third-person effect in which individuals overattribute certain behaviors to the influence of mass communication (21) is a possible catalyst.”

“According to the World Health Organization (1), 264 million individuals worldwide suffer from depression—a condition characterized by feelings of low self-worth, impaired concentration, and disturbed sleep, among various other maladaptive symptoms (2).”

“More prolonged studies spanning 8 or 9 years have further corroborated the view that frequency of social media use does not longitudinally predict depressive symptoms in adolescents even when studied across developmental periods from adolescence to young adulthood (31, 32).”

“(40) manipulated social media use by randomly assigning undergraduates to varying durations of abstinence (0, 2, 3, and 4 weeks) and found that social media abstention did not account for changes in loneliness or subjective well-being [see (41) for similar finding].”

“Researchers seeking to understand this prevalence of depression in modern society have identified social media use as a key risk factor (8, 9).”

“(40) manipulated social media use by randomly assigning undergraduates to varying durations of abstinence (0, 2, 3, and 4 weeks) and found that social media abstention did not account for changes in loneliness or subjective well-being [see (41) for similar finding].”

“The heavy reliance on correlational data severely limits our ability to infer directionality and argue that exposure to social media causes depression (11, 22).”

“Similarly, Raudsepp and Kais’s (35) 2-year study of adolescent girls revealed that baseline levels of depressive symptoms predicted problematic social media use, whereas prior social media use did not predict depressive symptoms.”

“(44) found that a week of social media abstinence reduced perceived stress levels, but only for excessive social media users.”

“(36) found that depressive symptoms predicted increases in social media use for both boys and girls.”

“Moreover, Vally and D’Souza (42) showed that a week-long abstinence from social media led to reduced life satisfaction and increased negative affect and perceived stress.”

“Raudsepp (39) pointed to this bidirectionality by showing that problematic social media use (i.”

“Lastly, given the considerable implications of findings from this research direction for adolescents’ technologyuse regulations and mental health, it is crucial that scholars embrace open scientific practices, such as pre-registration and utilization of the open science framework, to encourage future replications and…”

“Cross-sectional and correlational trend analyses appear to show increases in depression rates alongside increased social media engagement [(9, 11–14); also see (15), for a contrasting result].”

“15,16 Furthermore, there is a need to understand whether the effect of SM usage-reduction interventions on mental health is mediated by the time spent on different SM platforms.”

“Bidirectional associations between screen time and mental health could be supported by the self-perpetuating feedback loop model [131], whereby screen use leads to worsening mental health and poor mental health leads to increasing reliance on screens to cope [132].”

“Some turn to social media to increase followers and gain a sense of gratification to compensate for their emotional and psychological challenges [24].”

“Additionally, due to physical and mental immaturity, these children cannot regulate their use times and ways of use growing to be dependent on their smartphones, taking this same problematic behavior to the university [83].”

“Furthermore, previous meta-analytic studies (Hartanto et al., 2021; Wong et al., 2024) have found that the relationship between social media and well-being during the pandemic is not significant, in contrast to research conducted in pre-pandemic contexts (Marino et al., 2018; Yang et al., 2019),…”

“…smartphone use, it is more plausible that those with deficits in executive functions are more likely to have an unhealthy reliance on and uncontrolled usage of smartphones, driven by its rewarding and pleasurable experiences for users (Eyal, 2014; Hartanto et al., 2021; Srivastava, 2005).”

“For depressed individuals, excessive social media interactions often stem from their need for validation through likes and followers (Hartanto et al., 2021).”

“Because it has been suggested that a person with depressive symptoms may turn to social networking sites to gain social approval by gaining likes and followers, depression may be an antecedent of mobile phone addiction [46].”

“The issue of reverse causation concerning the association between social networking sites use and negative consequences on psychological well-being was already pointed out (e.g., Hartanto et al., 2021 ).”

“Studies investigating this relationship have yielded mixed results (Adeyanju et al., 2021; Hartanto et al., 2021).”

“Longitudinal research can provide important insights into the temporal sequence of events and can also help to address potential uncertainty around reverse causality [50,51].”

“However, several longitudinal and experimental research indicated the reverse causal effect of depression on excessive social media use [100].”

“…is currently limited empirical research specifically addressing the relationship between depression and UCAI-C, significant attention has been devoted to understanding the association between depression and other forms of technology, such as social media (15), screen media (16), and games (17, 18).”

“Notably, the latter view may also be argued from several theoretical standpoints [55].”

“This would provide important inferences about the causality and direction of effect of the constructs [73,74].”

“First, due to the correlational nature of our study, we cannot claim causality and rule out the possibility of time-varying confounds (Hartanto et al., 2021a).”

“Even so, many of the existing studies on the relationship between smartphone/social media use and mental health were cross-sectional and are vulnerable to reverse causation issues [12].”

“We adjusted for mental health at baseline, to account for the reverse causality of social media on mental health that has been suggested by previous research: poor mental health conditions may drive heavier social media use [35].”

“Indeed, longitudinal studies of social media use and depression symptoms have generally found stronger evidence for social media use as a consequence, rather than an antecedent, of depression [40].”

“These fi ndings are of paramount importance, given that they open the door to the use of new tools in the fi ght against CB.”

“In this regard, reverse causality between psychopathology and PUSN has previously been observed, though findings remain inconclusive on this point [96].”

“As [89] mentioned, future research needs to move toward a deeper analysis of the reverse possibility underlying social media use.”

“Accordingly, it cannot rule out the possibility of reverse causality (see Hartanto et al., 2021).”

“asserted that there is a causal association that runs in the other direction between social media and depressed symptoms [56].”

“Previous research has indicated that emotional states and social media use may exhibit bidirectional influences [20].”

“This perspective is supported by recent research indicating that factors like depressive symptoms can precede and drive social media use rather than the other way around (Hartanto et al., 2021).”

“Notably, in addition to the possibility that smartphone addiction affects the quality of sleep, both smartphone ad iction an sleep quality are likely to be caused by depression [30].”

“A reverse causation perspective [79] needs to be further considered because the heavy reliance on correlational data severely limits our ability to infer directionality and argue that the adverse mental health outcome is an antecedent rather than a consequence of Internet addiction.”

“Consistent with this, a broader reverse-causation perspective argues that selection into certain online behaviors by already-vulnerable youth can explain part of the observed correlation between SMU and distress [15].”

“Although this study suggested a relationship between the psychological distress of COVID-19 fear and depression affecting the risk of Internet addiction, it is also necessary to consider the inverse causal relationship in which excessive Internet use aggravates psychological distress [41].”

“It has to be noted, though, that digital technology use explains only very little of the variation in adolescents’ well-being (Orben & Przybylski, 2019) and researchers are still debating the causal direction of these effects (Hartanto et al., 2021).”

“…media screen time and body image in previous literature may be due to prior studies relying on subjective social media screen time measures, which have been shown to be prone to bias and unreliability (De Reuver & Bouwman, 2015; Ellis et al., 2019; Hartanto et al., 2021; Sewall et al., 2022).”

“Second, due to the cross-sectional design, the causal inference could not be established, and relevant studies also suggest that social media use may be more of a symptom than a cause [72]; longitudinal or experimental design should be adopted in future studies, with the aim to uncover the causal link; at the same tim…”

“Temporality and causality can be explored by longitudinal and experimental methods (Hartanto et al., 2021).”

“In the same regard, the Reverse Causation Theory (Kasl, 1982) was useful in this study as it helps to theorise and illuminate how crises induced redundancy and associated inability to meet one’s financial needs lowers selfesteem and thereby affects the desire of the redundant employee to work in the tourism sector in…”

“Smartphones can be used as a coping mechanism to alleviate negative emotions such as low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression, and as a means of satisfying psychological needs [31,32].”

“In addition, the possibility of reverse causation cannot be excluded [36].”

“6 The associations between social media use and mental health are likely complex and bidirectional, 7 and there is little causal evidence to date that reducing the time spent on social media will improve mental health and wellbeing.”

“Self-disclosure tendencies may act as mediators or moderators, further complicating the”

“Furthermore, social media may only affect those with a genetic and biological predisposition toward depression, and the impact of social media could be accompanied by other factors such as of fl ine interpersonal communication (Hartanto et al., 2021).”

“Studies have demonstrated an association between internet use and increased depressive symptoms [7–9], with several finding that internet usage in general and specific online activities such as social networking may be correlated with loneliness, low self-esteem, and depressive symptoms [10–12].”

“However, depressive symptoms may precede increased use of social networks, using them as an escape or for self-esteem reaffirmation through social validation [53].”

“Even when causal modeling is attempted (e.g., Jiang & Ngien, 2020 ), ascertaining causal - ity is problematic (see Hartanto et al., 2021 , for review), especially when dealing with large datasets with vast ana - lytical flexibility (Orben & Przybylski, 2019 ).”

“The possibility exists that depressive symptoms caused by unrelated issues could lead to increased social media use (Hartanto et al., 2021).”

“Some studies pointed out that distress should be used as a consequence of social media use [80], while others suggested that distress is an antecedent of reduced social media use [32].”

“For instance, adolescents with symptoms of anxiety or depression might turn to social media for reassurance-seeking or mood regulation 22,23 or engage in gaming to distract themselves from emotional distress.”

“For instance, Hartanto et al. summarize the current clues regarding the influence of social media on depression, highlighting the reverse effect of depression on social media use (72).”

“First, a longitudinal or experimental research design could enhance our understanding of the causal relationship between passions and affect, since it has been argued that a general state of depression might push people to spend more time on social media rather than the other way around (Hartanto et al., 2021).”

“We additionally acknowledge that a subjective measure of mental health does not inform us of the specific mental health conditions respondents were experiencing, so the problem as related to reverse causation could not be discussed in detail to provide a more balanced interpretation of the result [29].”

“Despite many studies focusing on the direction that increased social media use can lead to depression, only a few studies have looked at the possibility that depression may really explain greater social media usage [5].”

“Overuse of social media can cause depression, stress and anxiety among students and can increase cyberbullying, wasted time and health risks for students that are similar to the findings of existing studies (Hartanto, Quek, Tng, & Yong, 2021; Lee et al., 2023; Primack et al., 2021).”

“For example, people may excessively use social media because they are depressed, but problematic social media use may also make them depressed (Hartanto et al., 2021).”

“It should be noted that while much of the literature assumes the causal direction is from problematic use to mental health outcomes, other research is more equivocal and/or points to a mutually-reinforcing relationship (Hartanto et al., 2021; Lopes et al., 2022).”

“While most research has focused on youth and general pop - ulations, relatively little is known about individuals with mental disorders [ 1 , 2 , 6 , 22–25].”

“However, studies indicate that excessive social media use can affect users' mental health, such as increasing the risk of depression and anxiety (Azem et al., 2023; Hartanto et al., 2021).”

“These include social issues, dysfunctional family dynamics, and mental health issues like anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, and behavioral and emotional disturbances (10).”

“In this regard, previous research has highlighted the possibility of reverse or bidirectional associations, whereby psychological difficulties may also influence patterns of social media use (Hartanto et al., 2021).”

“In addition to these effects, social media also influences identity formation by encourag - ing individuals to manage their online presence in ways that attract social approval and validation (Hartanto et al., 2021).”

“The lack of direction or intentionality can lead to feelings of isolation, boredom, or even emotional emptiness (Hartanto et al., 2021 ; Özparlak & Karakaya, 2022; Rast et al., 2021 ).”

“…been consistently linked to various adverse outcomes [4, 5], such as diminished work performance [5, 6], less healthy social relationships [7–9], sleep disturbances [10–13], reduced life satisfaction [10, 14], and heightened feelings of jealousy [15, 16], anxiety [17, 18], and depression [19, 20].”