A Meta-Analysis of Social Media Usage with Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

Abstract

Since the social media burst, over 3.6 billion people have had access to social media (SM) worldwide, according to Statista: a global data platform [1]. Nowadays, social media has become the main source of information and communication for people. It has promoted society towards a brand new ‘revolution.’ Contemporaneously, more and more mental health problems are being diagnosed, which seems to be attributed to the booming social media. This study thus investigated whether the duration of social media use negatively impacts stress, anxiety, and depression through meta-analysis. It achieves comprehensive research under the multicultural background, which has not been performed before this study. Method: A systematic review of the journal article and meta-analysis was conducted to examine the effectiveness of using the PubMed and PsycINFO on social media works on the mental health problem. Journal articles were eligible for inclusion if it was written in English and published before January 2011. Results: Retrieved Studies show the solid negative association of time spent on SM with a mental health problem. Conclusion and Limitation: This review provides effective evidence for the negative impact of using social media on psychological issues such as stress and anxiety. However, covered studies excluded unpublished studies and the lack of control about age and gender-related variables underline the obligation for further research.