Social media, but not video games, linked to depression in teens

Screen time — and social media in particular — is linked to an increase in depressive symptoms in teenagers, according to a new study by researchers at Montreal's Sainte-Justine Hospital.

The research team, led by Patricia Conrod, investigated the relationship between depression and exposure to different forms of screen time in adolescents over a four-year period.

"What we found over and over was that the effects of social media were much larger than any of the other effects for the other types of digital screen time," said Conrod, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Montreal.

The researchers studied the behaviour of over 3,800 young people from 2012 until 2018. They recruited adolescents from 31 Montreal schools and followed their behaviour from Grade 7 until Grade 11.

The teenagers self-reported the number of hours per week that they consumed social media (such as Facebook and Instagram), video games and television.

Conrod and her team found an increase in depressive symptoms when the adolescents were consuming social media and television.