Scrolling social media passively may cause anxiety and depression; Research

Your short-term happiness of watching reels and scrolling through social media can make you depressed and anxious.

A recent study published in the journal Behaviour & Information Technology, titled 'Social media use', loneliness and psychological distress in emerging adults, found that people who use social media passively are more prone to feel lonely and experience psychological distress.

For the findings, researchers surveyed 288 participants aged between 18 and 34 to properly understand the relationship between various styles of engagement with social media.

The study examined 3 types of social media users

Passive users - These users exclusively browse content by other users.

Active non-social users - This category of users includes individuals who post their own content but did not engage with other users.

Active social users - These kind of users post their content and interact with other users as well by liking their post and commenting.

However, it was found that increased passive social media use is linked to anxiety, depression and stress, while non-social media users were associated with decreased stress.

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