Teens' social media use does not raise risk for depression
August 12, 2020
Science Daily/Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health
Contrary to popular wisdom, daily social media use is not a strong or consistent risk factor for depressive symptoms among adolescents, according to a new study by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health researchers. The results are published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
"Increasingly, teenagers are active on social media, particularly during the pandemic, as they have to rely on Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms to stay in touch with friends," says first author Noah Kreski, MPH, who conducted the research as a practicum project as a Columbia Mailman School student and currently works as a data analyst in the Department of Epidemiology. "While some adults have voiced concerns over the potential mental health risks of this behavior, our research finds no compelling evidence to suggest that social media use meaningfully increases adolescents' risk of depressive symptoms."
The researchers analyzed survey data collected by Monitoring the Future, an ongoing study of the behaviors, attitudes, and values of Americans from adolescence through adulthood, representing 74,472 8th and 10th grade students between 2009 to 2017. They assessed depressive symptoms to establish underlying depression risk, which they controlled for in their analysis to understand how daily social media use might contribute to depression.
Daily social media use among 8th and 10th grade students increased from 61 percent to 89 percent among girls, and from 46 percent to 75 percent among boys, from 2009 to 2017. Daily social media use was not associated with depressive symptoms after accounting for the fact that the adolescents who frequently use social media have worse mental health to begin with. However, among girls who had the lowest risk for depressive symptoms, daily social media use was weakly associated with symptoms, though due to low risk, the overall prevalence of symptoms in that group was small. Among boys, daily social media use was not linked to increased depressive symptoms, and some evidence suggested that daily social media use may actually be protective against depression.
"Daily social media use does not capture the diverse ways in which adolescents use social media, which may be both positive and negative depending on the social context," says senior author Katherine Keyes, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School. "Future research could explore the specific behaviors and experiences of young people using social media, as well as more frequent engagement with the various platforms."
Background on Adolescent Depression and Social Media Use
After almost 50 years of stability, recent evidence has indicated unprecedented increases in adolescent depression, depressive symptoms, and suicidal behavior, particularly among girls. There has been widespread speculation that increasing use of smartphones and social media has contributed to these trends. Proponents of this hypothesis note that adolescents are increasingly isolated from face-to-face interaction, experience cyber-bullying, and face challenges to self-esteem and self-worth through curated online images of peers. On the other hand, social media is often a positive outlet, and its use may have positive effects on adolescent self-esteem. Social networking sites provide a space for content that is positive or humorous, particularly valuable to adolescents who are depressed. Many young people seek out support and advice on social media, particularly those with moderate to severe depressive symptoms.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200812094844.htm
Teens who can describe negative emotions can stave off depression
June 28, 2019
Science Daily/University of Rochester
Teenagers who can describe their negative emotions in precise and nuanced ways are better protected against depression than their peers who can't. That's the conclusion of a new study about negative emotion differentiation, or NED -- the ability to make fine-grained distinctions between negative emotions and apply precise labels -- published in the journal Emotion.
"Adolescents who use more granular terms such as 'I feel annoyed,' or 'I feel frustrated,' or 'I feel ashamed' -- instead of simply saying 'I feel bad' -- are better protected against developing increased depressive symptoms after experiencing a stressful life event," explains lead author Lisa Starr, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Rochester.
Those who score low on negative emotion differentiation tend to describe their feelings in more general terms such as "bad" or "upset." As a result, they are less able to benefit from useful lessons encoded in their negative emotions, including the ability to develop coping strategies that could help them regulate how they feel.
"Emotions convey a lot of information. They communicate information about the person's motivational state, level of arousal, emotional valence, and appraisals of the threatening experience," says Starr. A person has to integrate all that information to figure out -- "am I feeling irritated," or "am I feeling angry, embarrassed, or some other emotion?"
Once you know that information you can use it to help determine the best course of action, explains Starr: "It's going to help me predict how my emotional experience will unfold, and how I can best regulate these emotions to make myself feel better."
The team found that a low NED strengthens the link between stressful life events and depression, leading to reduced psychological well-being.
By focusing exclusively on adolescence, which marks a time of heightened risk for depression, the study zeroed in on a gap in the research to date. Prior research suggests that during adolescence a person's NED plunges to its lowest point, compared to that of younger children or adults. It's exactly during this developmentally crucial time that depression rates climb steadily.
Previous research had shown that depression and low NED were related to each other, but the research designs of previous studies did not test whether a low NED temporally preceded depression. To the researchers, this phenomenon became the proverbial chicken-and-egg question: did those youth who showed signs of significant depressive symptoms have a naturally low NED, or was their NED low as a direct result of their feeling depressed?
The team, made up of Starr, Rachel Hershenberg, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Emory University, and Rochester graduate students Zoey Shaw, Irina Li, and Angela Santee, recruited 233 mid-adolescents in the greater Rochester area with an average age of nearly 16 (54 percent of them female) and conducted diagnostic interviews to evaluate the participants for depression.
Next, the teenagers reported their emotions four times daily over the period of seven days. One and a half years later, the team conducted follow-up interviews with the original participants (of whom 193 returned) to study longitudinal outcomes.
The researchers found that youth who are poor at differentiating their negative emotions are more susceptible to depressive symptoms following stressful life events. Conversely, those who display high NED are better at managing the emotional and behavioral aftermath of being exposed to stress, thereby reducing the likelihood of having negative emotions escalate into a clinically significant depression over time.
Depression ranks among the most challenging public health problems worldwide. As the most prevalent mental disorder, it not only causes recurring and difficult conditions for sufferers, but also costs the U.S. economy tens of billions of dollars each year and has been identified by the World Health Organization as the number one cause of global burden among industrialized nations. Particularly depression in adolescent girls is an important area to study, note the researchers, as this age brings a surge in depression rates, with a marked gender disparity that continues well into adulthood.
Adolescent depression disrupts social and emotional development, which can lead to a host of negative outcomes, including interpersonal problems, reduced productivity, poor physical health, and substance abuse. Moreover, people who get depressed during adolescence are more likely to become repeatedly depressed throughout their life span, says Starr. That's why mapping the emotional dynamics associated with depression is key to finding effective treatments.
"Basically you need to know the way you feel, in order to change the way you feel," says Starr. "I believe that NED could be modifiable, and I think it's something that could be directly addressed with treatment protocols that target NED."
The team's findings contribute to a growing body of research that tries to make inroads in the fight against rising rates of adolescent depression, suicidal thoughts, and suicide. According to the most recent CDC data, about 17 percent of high school students nationwide say they have thought of suicide, more than 13 percent said they actually made a suicide plan, and 7.4 percent attempted suicide in the past year.
"Our data suggests that if you are able to increase people's NED then you should be able to buffer them against stressful experiences and the depressogenic effect of stress," says Starr.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190628120447.htm
Early life stress and adolescent depression linked to impaired development of reward circuits
October 29, 2015
Science Daily/Elsevier
Early life stress is a major risk factor for later episodes of depression. In fact, adults who are abused or neglected as children are almost twice as likely to experience depression. Scientific research into this link has revealed that the increased risk following such childhood adversity is associated with sensitization of the brain circuits involved with processing threat and driving the stress response. More recently, research has begun to demonstrate that in parallel to this stress sensitization, there may also be diminished processing of reward in the brain and associated reductions in a person's ability to experience positive emotions.
Scientific research into this link has revealed that the increased risk following such childhood adversity is associated with sensitization of the brain circuits involved with processing threat and driving the stress response. More recently, research has begun to demonstrate that in parallel to this stress sensitization, there may also be diminished processing of reward in the brain and associated reductions in a person's ability to experience positive emotions.
Researchers at Duke University and the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio looked specifically at this second phenomenon in a longitudinal neuroimaging study of adolescents, in order to better understand how early life stress contributes to depression.
They recruited 106 adolescents, between the ages of 11-15, who underwent an initial magnetic resonance imaging scan, along with measurements of mood and neglect. The study participants then had a second brain scan two years later.
The researchers focused on the ventral striatum, a deep brain region that is important for processing rewarding experiences as well as generating positive emotions, both of which are deficient in depression.
"Our analyses revealed that over a two-year window during early to mid-adolescence, there was an abnormal decrease in the response of the ventral striatum to reward only in adolescents who had been exposed to emotional neglect, a relatively common form of childhood adversity where parents are persistently emotionally unresponsive and unavailable to their children," explained first author Dr. Jamie Hanson.
"Importantly, we further showed that this decrease in ventral striatum activity predicted the emergence of depressive symptoms during this key developmental period," he added. "Our work is consistent with other recent studies finding deficient reward processing in depression, and further underscores the importance of considering such developmental pathways in efforts to protect individuals exposed to childhood adversity from later depression."
This study suggests that, in some people, early life stress compromises the capacity to experience enthusiasm or pleasure. In addition, the effect of early life stress may grow over time so that people who initially appear resilient may develop problems later in life.
"This insight is important because it suggests a neural pathway through which early life stress may contribute to depression," said Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. "This pathway might be targeted by neural stimulation treatments. Further, it suggests that survivors of early life trauma and their families may benefit from learning about the possibility of consequences that might appear later in life. This preparation could help lead to early intervention."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151029102524.htm