Researchers say Facebook can cause depression

The findings are published in the December Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. Spending too much time on social media" sites like Facebook is making people more than just miserable. It may also be making them depressed. A new study conducted by psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania has shown for the first time a causal link between time spent on social media and depression and loneliness the researchers said. It concluded that those who drastically cut back their use of sites like Facebook Instagram FB -3.35 and Snapchat SNAP -2.16 often saw a marked improvement in their mood and in how they felt about their lives. Dont miss: Nearly half of Americans report feeling alone It was striking" says Melissa Hunt psychology professor at University of Pennsylvania who led the study. What we found over the course of three weeks was that rates of depression and loneliness went down significantly for people who limited their (social media) use." Many of those who began the study with moderate clinical depression finished just a few weeks later with very mild symptoms. Many of those who began the study with moderate clinical depression finished just a few weeks later with very mild symptoms she says. The study No More FOMO: Limiting Social Media Decreases Loneliness and Depression" was conducted by Melissa Hunt Rachel Marx Courtney Lipson and Jordyn Young is being published by the peer-reviewed Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. For the study Hunt and her team studied 143 undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania over a number of weeks. They tested their mood and sense of well-being using seven different established scales. Half of the participants carried on using social media sites as normal. (Facebook Instagram and Snapchat did not respond to request for comment.) The other half were restricted to ten minutes per day for each of the three sites studied: Facebook Instagram and Snapchat the most popular sites for the age group. (Use was tracked through regular screen shots from the participants phones showing battery data.) Net result: Those who cut back on social media use saw clinically significant" falls in depression and in loneliness over the course of the study. Their rates of both measures fell sharply while those among the so-called control" group who did not change their behavior saw no improvement. This isnt the first study to find a link between social media use on the one hand and depression and loneliness on the other. But previous studies have mainly just shown there is a correlation and the researchers allege that this shows a causal connection." Read More