“Our study finds that if Kari or Knut increasingly like and post on Instagram or Snapchat, they are no more likely to develop symptoms of anxiety and depression. But that doesn’t mean that they are not having negative experiences on social media, or feeling addicted or excluded. Some youths may be particularly vulnerable, and those are the individuals we need to identify,” Steinsbekk says.
This goes against their title. I am saying somewhat similar things but expanding far beyond a paragraph that uses “weasel words” to hedge all their conclusions.
Their study at best shows that the amount of consumption of social media past a certain point isn’t correlated to the negative outcomes.
Having depression and/or anxiety have defined diagnostic criteria other than "looking at social media makes me feel bad" or "looking at social media makes me feel anxious".
You could use social media a lot, and be extremely unhappy whenever you use it, and still not be clinically depressed or have an anxiety disorder.
An analogy: every time you ride a roller coaster, you are made anxious, and so is everyone else. This doesn't mean that rolle coasters "cause anxiety" - they just cause you to feel anxious while using it. There's a difference.
A lot of people who don't have direct experience with depression or anxiety disorders don't really understand what they are, and assume that they are just a stronger version of being chronically sad or chronically scared. It's not so.
And given that 1 of 3 girls considers attempting suicide, perhaps we need to have a conversation about whether this diagnosis fits them, and whether it is a helpful distinction, because that is a real huge measurable statistic
“Well you considered attempting suicide, but you aren’t clinically depressed, so…”
