Social Media and Mental Health

Luca Braghieri, Ro'ee Levy and Alexey Makarin
Additional contact information
Luca Braghieri: LMU Munich

No 320, Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition

Abstract: The diffusion of social media coincided with a worsening of mental health conditions among adolescents and young adults in the United States, giving rise to speculation that social media might be detrimental to mental health. In this paper, we provide the first quasi-experimental estimates of the impact of social media on mental health by leveraging a unique natural experiment: the staggered introduction of Facebook across U.S. colleges. Our analysis couples data on student mental health around the years of Facebook’s expansion with a generalized difference-in-differences empirical strategy. We find that the roll-out of Facebook at a college increased symptoms of poor mental health, especially depression, and led to increased utilization of mental healthcare services. We also find that, according to the students’ reports, the decline in mental health translated into worse academic performance. Additional evidence on mechanisms suggests the results are due to Facebook fostering unfavorable social comparisons.

JEL-codes: D12 D72 D90 I10 L82 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-02-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-pay and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (64)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Social Media and Mental Health (2022)
Working Paper: Social Media and Mental Health (2022)
Working Paper: Social Media and Mental Health (2022)
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