Studies Find that Communicating with Friends and Family, Communicating Annonymously, and Receiving Positive Feedback on Social Networking Profiles All Significantly Decrease Feelings of Depression

Three studies, in relation to people's uses of the internet and social networking websites and how that affected those people's feelings of depression, loneliness, self-esteem, and well-being were completed on people from all different age groups. The first study, completed on college aged students found that after chatting anonymously with their peers at five different times, feelings of depression and loneliness significantly decreased and feelings of self-esteem increased. A second study, completed on people of all ages, found that using the internet to talk to friends and family significantly decreased feelings of depression. The third study found that in adolescents age 10-19, self-esteem and well-being were increased significantly when the feedback on their social networking profiles was positive. 

Chatting Anonymously with Peers Five Different Times Decreases Feelings of Depression

A study by Shaw and Grant (2004) had students chat anonymously on five different occasions with a peer in their class that they had never met with or spoke to before. They chatted with the same peer all five times and either both participants were given discussion questions to lead the conversation each time or just one out of the two participants were given discussion questions. Both participants were asked not to reveal any information to each other in the chat which would reveal the identity of the other person. Before the chat sessions, the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale were administered. These same tests were administered again after two chat sessions and then again, finally, after all five chat sessions had been completed. As you can see in the chart above, the average depression scores from the beginning of the study to the end of the study decreased by 3.3 points. Average loneliness scores decrease by 3.6 points.

Using the Internet to Communicate with Friends and Family Decreases Feelings of Depression More than Using the Internet to Meet New People

A second study, by Bessière, Kiesler, Kraut, and Boneva (2008), gathered participants by randomly dialing many different people and asking them if they had access to the internet. If they said yes, they were then sent a survey. About 45% of the people to receive the survey completed it. A follow up survey was sent six months later in which 82% of the people who completed the first survey also completed the second survey. The participants were administered the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). They were also asked a series of true or false questions about their activities on the internet. The researchers narrowed these questions down into four categories, internet use to communicate with friends and family, internet use to meet new people, internet use to gather information and internet use to entertain or escape. After six months, another CES-D scale was administered. People who reported using the internet mostly to communicate with friends and family showed decreases in their depression scores from the first test to the second test six months later. This significant decrease was not found for any other category. People who mostly used the internet to meet new people actually had an increase in depression scores. Researchers say this is due to the displacement theory, which is when an individual uses the internet to communicate with new people in order to displace communication with the already strong ties in their life. This causes distress and, therefore, increases depression.

In the video above, University of Maryland, College Park Social Psychology professor, Dr. Dylan Selterman, Ph.D. gives his perspective as a social psychologist on both of the previously mentioned studies. As presented in the studies, he concurs that a determining factor for the mental health and well-being of an individual is the way in which they use the internet, not whether or not they use the internet at all.

Adolescents, Age 10-19, Scored Higher on Self-Esteem and Well-Being Tests When Reporting Receiving Positive Feedback on their Social Networking Profiles

In a final study, by Valkenburg, Peter, and Schouten (2006), researchers conducted a survey through a Dutch social networking website called CU2 ("See You Too"). They asked the participants to measure the tone of the reactions to their profiles, among other things such as, how frequently they use CU2, how frequently they receive reactions on their CU2 profiles and how many relationships they have formed through the social networking website. The tone of other CU2 users' reactions to their profile was measured through a five point scale in which 1 was that the reactions they receive on their profile were always negative and 5 was that the reactions they  receive on their profile were always positive. Three subscales of Harters’ self-perception profile for adolescents were used to measure self-esteem and the five-item satisfaction with life scale, developed by Diener et al, was used to measure well-being.

The chart to the left shows the percentage of the adolescents that received each type of feedback on their profiles. The researchers found that the adolescents who reported receiving positive feedback on their social networking profiles, scored higher on the self-esteem scale than adolescents who reported receiving only negative or predominantly negative feedback on their profiles. This increase in self-esteem also increased the scores on the well-being scale. With adolescents who reported receiving only negative or predominantly negative feedback on their profiles, researchers did not see this increase in self-esteem scale scores or well-being scale scores.

In the following video, Dr. Selterman comments on this study, and the many others like it, in which researchers find results that support the evidence that social networking websites affect well-being positively but also find results that suggests that social networking websites affect well-being negatively. Dr. Selterman offers an alternative study, which found that this is due to the passiveness of interacting with social media websites on the internet.

 

More recently, studies such as these three, and many more similar to them, have been able to provide evidence that internet use, social networking website use and even chatting anonymously in a chat room can reduce feelings of depression and loneliness and can increase feelings of self-esteem and well-being. If you use the internet to communicate with new people, you will, most likely, not receive the decrease in feelings of depression you were looking for. If you use the internet to communicate with your friends and family, then this decrease in feelings of depression should take place. As Dr. Selterman stated earlier, it is not if you use it, but the way in which you use the internet that will alter one's well-being.