August 11, 2023

expert reaction to a systematic review on the impact of social media use interventions on mental well-being

A systematic review published in Journal of Medical Internet Research looks at the impact of social media use interventions on mental well-being.

Professor Bernadka Dubicka, from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said:

“This review highlights the need for more research about the impact of social media on people’s mental health, particularly young people and those with existing mental health problems. While the review found therapy improved mental wellbeing for some users, its conclusions are limited both by the nature of the review itself (for example, not pre-registered, limited checking processes, with evidence of missing studies) and the poor quality of existing evidence. As the authors noted, further research is needed to determine who may benefit from different interventions including therapy and limiting social media use.”

Prof Stella Chan, Charlie Waller Chair in Evidence-based Psychological Treatment, University of Reading, said:

“The press release has highlighted some key findings of the research. While over a third of the studies reported improvement, readers should be aware that the majority of the studies (~60%) reported mixed findings or no improvement.

“Importantly, all but one study included by the review were assessed as having weak methodology. In other words, this review found that the majority of the research studies that evaluated interventions for social media use were not scientifically robust. 

“It is indeed encouraging to see that there are some evidence suggesting that therapy based interventions can be effective. Likewise, it is encouraging to see that some interventions reported improvement in depression. It should however be noted that these were not based on all the 23 studies included. It would perhaps be clearer to summarise the findings as 7 out of 10 studies which measured depression reported improvement, and that 5 out of 6 studies which used therapy-based interventions reported improvement.  

“The quotes from the authors have succinctly highlighted the key implications in real world, such as limiting media use itself is unlikely to be sufficient in improving mental health.”

‘The impact of social media use interventions on mental well-being: a systematic review’ by Ruth Plackett et al. was published in Journal of Medical Internet Research at 13:00 UK time on Friday 11^th August.

Declared interests

Prof Bernadka Dubicka: “No COIs.”

Prof Stella Chan: “No declarations of interest.”