“You see people project their best self,” Alisha says. People on the platform interact a lot, and each “like” or comment is open for all to see. Each posted picture goes out to the entire universe of Instagram followers. That might help relieve stress, the teen thinks.īut Instagram is different. On Twitter, people create their own tweets, sharing their thoughts with all they follow. “You’re not afraid to put on an ugly filter.” So Snapchat might make it easier to be yourself. With Snapchat, for example, “you’re having person-to-person conversations,” she says. Why might use of different social media sites lead to different anxiety scores? Alisha thinks that how people interact with social media matters. All her study can show is an association.Įxplainer: Correlation, causation, coincidence and more Why? Certain platforms might attract more people who tend to be anxious, rather than prompting their visitors to become anxious. But that doesn’t mean that Instagram causes anxiety, Alisha notes. Time spent on Instagram was correlated with higher scores on questions asking about anxiety. What Alisha turned up was a correlation - a link between two things. The Society also publishes Science News for Students and this blog.) Interpreting her findings (ISEF was created by Society for Science & the Public. They presented their science fair projects to the public and competed for some $5 million in prizes. The annual competition brought together almost 1,800 students from 81 countries. The teen shared her results at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), three weeks ago. They could be more likely to suffer from anxiety later, Alisha says. People who used this site scored more highly on the anxiety test. That suggests they might be less likely to develop an anxiety disorder later. Teens who spent a lot of time on those sites scored lower on the anxiety test. Twitter and Snapchat both seemed fairly relaxing. Use of Facebook also was not linked with someone’s score on the anxiety test. She attends a big school and ended up with 1,000 responses.įacebook may make big headlines, but it’s not all that popular with teens, her data show. To get the word out, “I emailed all the teachers in my school and asked them to give out the survey,” Alisha says. Instead, they helped determine if someone was likely to develop an anxiety disorder at some later date. Would they feel comfortable giving a public speech, for instance? The questions could not diagnose anxiety. The questions also asked the volunteers about their levels of anxiety. For instance, they might prefer to be active (posting), interactive (liking and commenting) or just remain passive (scrolling through). It also asked why the teens went to these sites and how they used these types of social media. The survey asked teens how much time they spent on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. They made it into a survey about social media and anxiety that would be suitable for teens. It had been developed for use by for adults. Together, they adapted a test for anxiety in social situations. He is a psychiatrist - a doctor who treats mental illnesses - at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz. If these feelings don’t go away, they can stop people from going to school or participating in events they enjoy.Īlisha wanted to look for potential links between use of social media by teens and risk of anxiety disorders. They might suffer from feelings of panic. People with anxiety disorders may develop tense muscles or trouble sleeping. We’re not talking about the butterflies you get before a big speech. Slightly more than three in every 10 U.S. She particularly wanted to study anxiety, she says, because it’s such a common mental illness and often develops during adolescence.Īnxiety disorders - disorders that are associated with anxiety and fear, even when there’s nothing to be afraid of - are indeed very common. “Almost 94 percent are using social media daily.” The teen wanted to assess the impacts of these sites on herself and her friends. “Nowadays you can’t tell a teenager not to use ,” Alisha says. Social media is a fact of life for teens.
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