Social media use was positively correlated with higher levels of chronic inflammation, more somatic symptoms, & more visits to the doctor or health centers for an illness; no correlation with seeking medical care for infection-related illnesses

Social Media Use and Its Link to Physical Health Indicators. David S. Lee, Tao Jiang, Jennifer Crocker, and Baldwin M. Way. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, Jan 12 2022. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2021.0188

Abstract: Social media use has become an integral part of many young adults' daily lives. Although much research has examined how social media use relates to psychological well-being, little is known about how it relates to physical health. To address this knowledge gap, the present research investigated how the amount of social media people use relates to various indices of physical health. Young adults provided a blood sample that was analyzed for C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of chronic inflammation. They also completed self-report measures of social media use, somatic symptoms, illness-related physician or health center visits, and whether they sought medical care for infection-related illnesses in the last 3 months.

Social media use was positively correlated with higher levels of CRP, more somatic symptoms, and more visits to the doctor or health centers for an illness. Although directionally consistent, the correlation with likelihood of seeking medical care for infection-related illnesses was nonsignificant (p = 0.061). All of these results held after controlling for factors such as sociodemographic information and depressive symptoms. Given the prevalence of social media use in daily life, these findings underscore the need for more research examining how social media use relates to physical health.

Discussion

The current research examined whether social media use is associated with various physical health indicators among college students. Social media use was correlated with higher levels of CRP—a biomarker of chronic inflammation that is associated with chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular diseases and cancers. Social media use was also related to experiencing more frequent somatic symptoms, and to behavioral health indices such as more visits to the doctor or health centers for an illness. The pattern of results remained the same even after adjusting for various factors, such as gender and depressive symptoms.

Our findings make several novel contributions. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate the association of social media use across several platforms with CRP, a chronic inflammatory and health marker, in a college sample. Importantly, the use of a biological marker as a key health indicator is a strength of this study given that prior studies on social media use have primarily relied on self-report well-being measures, which can be vulnerable to demand characteristics. Furthermore, by measuring college students' social media use across several platforms (vs. one particular platform), our study captured social media usage in a more ecologically valid fashion43: By showing how this overall social media use variable was related to multiple health indicators, this study integrates and extends the nascent research on social media and physical health.

Broadly, our findings highlight the potential role of social media use in the context of social relationships and physical health research.50,51 Although people can engage in “nonsocial” activities on social media (e.g., reading the news), much of what they do on social media involves efforts to initiate, maintain, and develop relationships with others. For example, similar to the traditional conceptualization of social integration,52,53 people use social media platforms to have intimate conversations and exchange social support,54 to participate in groups and organizations (e.g., Facebook groups), and to cultivate diverse types of relationships.

Thus, an interesting question is why social media use was not associated with better physical health in this study, especially given the salubrious health effects typically seen with traditional measures of social integration and interaction (e.g., Social Network Index).53 Given the changing nature of social interactions and communication norms, it would be a timely and important endeavor to understand how social media use may contribute to social integration, which would have implications for research on social relationships and health.

In addition to the possibility that high social media usage leads to stress or displacement of health-promoting activities, problematic social media use (e.g., social networking site (SNS) addiction, social comparison) may trigger psychological processes or change in lifestyles that can undermine health.55–57 For instance, SNS addiction (e.g., preoccupation with social media, excessive use) is associated with lower well-being and depression,14,58 which can predict worse physical health.59 Although it is unclear how much our participants engaged in problematic social media use in this study, future studies may directly assess social media addiction and examine its relation to physical health (e.g., Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale).55

Caveats and limitations

This study has some limitations. First, the cross-sectional design of this study limits our ability to make causal or temporal inferences about the relation between social media use and physical health. For example, we cannot rule out the possibility that people with undermined health may use social media more (e.g., to seek health information or distraction from their dysphoria). Thus, future research should consider using longitudinal or experimental designs to establish causal and temporal effects.

Second, the effect sizes found in this study are small (0.17 < βs < 0.20), although comparable to those typically found in studies on social media use and psychological well-being (−0.05 < rs < −0.15). Thus, it would be important to consider whether these effect sizes have clinical or practical significance.

Finally, this study documented an aggregate association between overall amount of social media use and physical health. Although focusing on the amount of social media use—the most commonly studied variable—allowed us to connect to extant literature, this broad metric does not provide any insight into how people use social media. Given that people use social media for a variety of reasons, and that the ways in which they use social media can also influence their well-being,60,61 future research should examine how the types of social media use may relate to health.