Teens' Social Media Use Does Not Raise Risk For Depression

Question

The claim is that teens' social media usage doesn't raise a factor for depression. Due to the research I was looking into I found that in some cases, social media use can lead to depression. "The researchers analyzed survey data collected by Monitoring the Future, an ongoing study of the behaviors, attitudes, and values of Americans from adolescence through adulthood, representing 74,472 8th and 10th grade students between 2009 to 2017. They assessed depressive symptoms to establish underlying depression risk, which they controlled for in their analysis to understand how daily social media use might contribute to depression" (Columbia Mailman School of Public Health). 

Comments

I disagree with your claim. There were many studies done that are are linked in this article that prove social media use raises risk for depression. According to the article that you linked, extensive research on the quantity and quality of social media use has shown an association between its use and depression in adolescents."The majority of studies found a positive correlation between time spent on SNS and higher levels of depression" (NIH).

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I personally have a hard time agreeing with this fact check on teens social Media does not raise the risk for depression. There were multiple studies linked in the article that social media does raise the risk for depression. Although I have never head of the source PMC PubMed Central, they have several statistics showing which apps cause the most uprise in teens depression and the least. Lastly, in your fact check you failed to provide a statement matching the main claim you were trying to fact check.

Answer 1

Many studies conducted over the past view years give strong reasoning and evidence that Social Media could be a major correlation to the rise of depression in teenagers. I've linked two articles that expand on the question more, with each providing thorough evidence in studies that were performed with time.

In Child Mind Institutes, it states that with the rise of smartphone popularity, it had seemed around that time depression systems and suicide rates were also rising in the years.

The University of Pittsburgh also mentions that with the study that was conducted, it mentions that depression and anxiety rose more with the amount of social media platforms a young adult had.

For the first part of the claim that social media does not cause depression, I would say false.

Child Mind Institute

https://childmind.org/article/is-social-media-use-causing-depression/

University of Pittsburgh:

https://www.braininstitute.pitt.edu/using-lots-social-media-sites-raises-depression-risk

Answer 2

the information I found shows that this claim is false. Childmind.org stated that smartphones where introduced in 2007. by 2015, 92 percent of  teens and young adult owned a smart phone. This rise in smartphones also came with a rise in depression. A study was also done on half a million kids in 8th-12th grade. these studies showed that from 2010-2015, the level of depression was raised by 33% and the suicide rate by girl in that same age group raised by 65%.

https://childmind.org/article/is-social-media-use-causing-depression/

Answer 3

According to the same study linked, throughout the testing done. They did find from their testing a positive correlation between social media use with higher levels of depression and suicidal thoughts. "The majority of studies found a positive correlation between time spent on SNS and higher levels of The majority of studies found a positive correlation between time spent on SNS and higher levels of depression" and "Higher frequency of SM use (≥2 h a day) was also found to be positively associated with suicidal ideation".