A unique new study of young adults finds that negative experiences on Facebook may increase the risk of depressive symptoms, suggesting that online social interactions have important consequences for mental health.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In the first study of its kind, public health researchers show that young adults who reported having negative experiences on Facebook — including bullying, meanness, misunderstandings or unwanted contacts — were at significantly higher risk of depression, even accounting for many possible confounding factors.
“I think it’s important that people take interactions on social media seriously and don’t think of it as somehow less impactful because it’s a virtual experience as opposed to an in-person experience,” said lead author Samantha Rosenthal, an epidemiology research associate in the Brown University School of Public Health who performed the research as part of her doctoral thesis at Brown. “It’s a different forum that has real emotional consequences.”