Comment by impure
4 hours ago
I was reading up on some RCTs on social media and mental health recently and one of the surprising findings is that social media is actually worse for older people.
4 hours ago
I was reading up on some RCTs on social media and mental health recently and one of the surprising findings is that social media is actually worse for older people.
That makes sense, they haven't "built immunity".
Can you share some things you were reading?
Not OP, and I’ve been looking at more meta-analyses than RCTs, but:
* Lei et al 2024 metaanalysis, generally positive associations but no causal evidence for psychosocial effects, especially when the social media use is family-directed - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-psycho...
* Balki et al 2022, metaanalysis, same thing: good for reinforcing existing real-human social connections, overcoming barriers to/increasing regularity and frequency of contact, acquiring access to resources; isolating to use outside that context; regular and frequent contact much more effective than occasional or episodic: https://aging.jmir.org/2022/4/e40125/
My overall impression seems to be what common sense tells us: to the extent it lets you overcome aging-related obstacles to interacting with real people, great; to the extent it’s brain rot, it’s isolating.
This is the one I read: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032... which says how older participants benefit more from restricting social media use.