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Comparing oneself with others on social media is more strongly associated with symptoms of anxiety and depression among adolescents than using social media to pass the time. This is shown by a study of more than 4,000 Norwegian adolescents, conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

The study is published in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health.

Previous research on social media and adolescent mental health has often focused on overall time spent on social media. In this study, the researchers examined how specific behaviors and experiences on social media are associated with different mental health symptoms.

Passing time when bored was the most prominent aspect of social media use among the adolescents. It showed weak associations with the symptoms examined. Comparing oneself with others was also common and showed considerably stronger associations, particularly with symptoms of anxiety, social anxiety and depression.

"Our findings show that we need to distinguish between different ways of using social media. Passing time showed weak associations with mental health symptoms. At the same time, passing time was the most common reason for using social media.

"This could be an important piece of the puzzle in understanding how social media use affects adolescent mental health and how we should study it. Previous studies measuring overall use have not found strong evidence of an association," says Jonas Raninen, associate professor at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet.

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