Social Media and Mental Health

Luca Braghieri, Ro'ee Levy and Alexey Makarin

American Economic Review, 2022, vol. 112, issue 11, 3660-93

Abstract: We provide quasi-experimental estimates of the impact of social media on mental health by leveraging a unique natural experiment: the staggered introduction of Facebook across US 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 rollout of Facebook at a college had a negative impact on student mental health. It also increased the likelihood with which students reported experiencing impairments to academic performance due to poor mental health. Additional evidence on mechanisms suggests the results are due to Facebook fostering unfavorable social comparisons.

JEL-codes: D91 I12 I23 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (57)

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Working Paper: 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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DOI: 10.1257/aer.20211218

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