Thinking about quitting social media? There may be another option, B.C. researcher says

Strategies for mitigating the negative mental health effects of social media tend to focus on reducing time spent scrolling, according to a B.C. researcher, who says there may be a way to limit the harm without logging off.

Strategies for mitigating the negative mental health effects of social media tend to focus on reducing time spent scrolling, according to a B.C. researcher, who says there may be a way to limit the harm without logging off.

A new study, led by Dr. Amori Mikami, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, sought to explore an alternative to deleting apps or downloading new ones that impose time limits and force lockouts.

Those tactics, Mikami says, limit how much we use social media but don’t necessarily change how we engage with it.

"Is the only option just to quit cold turkey or quit entirely? Or is there a way that you can learn to use social media smarter, where you can maximize the positive aspects of social media and minimize the negative aspects?" she asks.

The positives include fostering connections, maintaining relationships, and giving or receiving support. The negatives – particularly for young people – include what Mikami refers to as self-presentation and social comparison.

"What do I look like on social media? How are people judging me? How do I compare to other people? Am I presenting a positive online image? Who is doing better than me? What am I missing out on? What do other people have?" she says, providing examples of some of the questions that characterize online interactions that can lower self-esteem, increase loneliness, or foster fear of missing out.

Mikami's research, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology last week, randomly divided a cohort of 393 participants between 17 and 29 years old into three separate groups for a six-week period.