New Study Reveals Adults with Frequent Social Media Use are More Irritable
What Can We Take Away?
A new study published this month in JAMA examined how the frequency of social media use in adults correlated with objective measures of irritability.
In the study, irritability was measured by rating how true these statements were to the respondent:
“I have been grumpy”
“I have been feeling like I might snap”
“Other people have been getting on my nerves”
“Things have been bothering me more than they normally do”
“I have been feeling irritable.”
For those who love data, the study can be found here, but here are the important takeaways:
This was a cross-sectional survey of >42,000 diverse adults in the US
Of those who use social media, 14.2% use once a day, 39.2% use multiple times a day, and 24.9% use most of the day (yikes!)
There was a statistically significant increase in irritability as social media use increased, with those using more than once a day scoring 1.43 points higher, and those using most of the day scoring 3.37 points higher. (30-point total scale)
Residual irritability persisted after controlling for symptoms that could be explained by depression or anxiety
Not surprisingly, Tiktok had the highest rates of irritability (vs Instagram, Twitter and Facebook)
Those posting more frequently on social media were more irritable (vs consuming)
Limitation: Causality cannot be established, it doesn’t tell us exactly how long people are spending online
For me, there are two big questions from this study for parents to think about…
How is Your Use of Social Media Affecting Your Interactions With Your Children?
I think a lot of us feel irritable in general. We’re busy, overworked, over stimulated, and there just aren’t enough hours in the day. I think it’s worth asking whether our use of social media is compounding this.
If you use social media multiple times per day, or most of the day, are you able to recognize when it might be affecting your mood or irritability level? Are you more short with your kids? Are they receiving the message that they’re not as important? This is known as parental technoference, and many other studies1 23 show it can have a big impact on the parent-child relationship.
Have you ever taken a day off of social media and evaluated how you felt? If you’re not sure, it can give you some useful information. Oftentimes if we can glean how our social media use is affecting us, we can take breaks accordingly.
Consider cutting down, or consolidating your use into chunks- say, scroll for 20 minutes at 3 different times of day. Try not to scroll when you’re with your kids, as you may feel more irritable and also more distracted.
How Might We Translate This Study To Infer How Social Media Affects Kids?
It is very likely that we could assume the findings of this study are applicable to adolescents as well, and I would venture a guess the significance may be even greater.
If a child or teen is ‘just irritable’, but doesn’t meet the diagnostic criteria for depression or anxiety, for example, then they may slip through the cracks of a clinician’s evaluation, or be chalked up to ‘teen angst’.
I have seen many teens in my office who really can’t pinpoint what’s going on with them, but they feel grumpy, irritable and moody. How can we know for sure social media isn’t contributing? If they cut back or eliminate their use, we may be able to find out, but I’m not often successful at convincing them.
If you think your child is irritable, or notice their behaviour or mood is worse after being on their screen, consider changing up the boundaries around use. Talk to them about what you’re noticing and why you think a break, or reduced time, is necessary. We often see huge improvements when screentime is reduced.
Let’s be honest- we all feel better when we’re on screens less. Finding that balance, and being aware of when ‘enough is enough’ can make a huge difference- and now we have some data to prove it!
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29895837/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563220303654
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16850-x