Digital technology, social media depress users: study

Researchers have found that digital technology and social media are making more people depressed.

According to the study conducted by University of Houston researchers and published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, the negative feelings come when users compare their lives to the virtual lives of their Facebook friends.

The researchers added that people often presented themselves and their experiences in the best possible light warping users' sense of reality.

According to Katherine Aumer, psychology professor at Hawaii Pacific University, users need to keep in mind that this [social media] was a world presented to them by their friends and it was artificially constructed. Everyone was presenting their best face, everyone was trying to be something that looked good.

Experts advice users not to compare themselves with the image that friends created with their online profiles, an image that could often be exaggerated.

The study titled, Seeing Everyone Else's Highlight Reels: How Facebook Usage is Linked to Depressive Symptoms is authored by My Lai Steers.

Steers and fellow researchers tracked 154 people, ages 18 to 42, who used Facebook on a daily basis. The participants were asked to answer a set of questions at night to assess symptoms of depression and levels of social comparison.

The study concluded that people who logged on to Facebook more frequently evaluated themselves against their friends more often and experienced more depressive symptoms.

The symptoms included - lack of hope for a better future, feelings of sadness and irritation over mundane things.

The study found that college students, who might be struggling to establish their identities were more susceptible to peer influences.

Though the study was the first to identify the link between social comparisons on Facebook and depression, previous research into the psychological impacts of social media had drawn similar conclusions.

In February, researchers at the University of Missouri found that Facebook use can lead to symptoms of depression if the social networking site triggers feelings of envy among its users (See: If Facebook use causes envy, depression could follow).

A 2010 Canadian study pointed to "Facebook's unique contributions to the experience of jealousy in romantic relationships," in a 2013 German study researchers concluded Facebook world was ''swarming with envy''.

According to a 1998 Carnegie Mellon study, that predated the advent of Facebook by six years, the internet was already changing the way people interacted.

"Greater use of the Internet was associated with declines in participants' communication with family members in the household, declines in the size of their social circle, and increases in their depression and loneliness," the study found.