Social Media and Mental Health

Arbeitspapier

The diffusion of social media coincided with a worsening of mental health conditions among adolescents and young adults in the United States, giving rise to speculation that social media might be detrimental to mental health. In this paper, we provide quasi-experimental estimates of the impact of social media on mental health by leveraging a unique natural experiment: the staggered introduction of Facebook across U.S. colleges. Our analysis couples data on student mental health around the years of Facebook’s expansion with a generalized difference-in-differences empirical strategy. We find that the roll-out of Facebook at a college increased symptoms of poor mental health, especially depression. We also find that, among students predicted to be most susceptible to mental illness, the introduction of Facebook led to increased utilization of mental healthcare services. Lastly, we find that, after the introduction of Facebook, students were more likely to report experiencing impairments to academic performance resulting from poor mental health. Additional evidence on mechanisms suggests that the results are due to Facebook fostering unfavorable social comparisons.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 9723

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: General‡ ; Health: General ; Entertainment; Media ; Information and Internet Services; Computer Software

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Braghieri, Luca ; Levy, Ro'ee ; Makarin, Alexey
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2022

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/260853
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET