Researchers Officially Find the Link Between Depression and Social Media

Somehow this article makes it sound as if this study is somehow more “official” and real than other studies on the same topic. Not making a statement here about the quality of the research. But it’s probably not the best article to highlight about the study. And then all these ugly outbrain ads...

New user, first submission, low quality source — yet frontpage right away. Really shows how much the HN community wants it to be true.

Noticed a strange protectionism of social media. Personally I agree research of 143 people is not credible at all, it’s just one person opinion. However my experience tells me using social media makes me much more depressed because I’m constantly comparing myself with other, all those led to broken world perception when everyone around you is living a better life than you, and it doesn’t matter how hard you are working there’re plenty who always sunny. The big issue there is social media shows only top of iceberg - shine happy people with their vacation, fancy restaurants, weddings, nice child’s. But it’s all 100% wrong - it’s hides 9 months of pregnancy, 2 years of reproductive treatments, or long working hours without vacation for the last 6 years and constant overwork. Social media hides all those works witch must be done BEFORE this shiny photo can appear. None interested in real life posting aka 9pm am still at work, 11pm driving home. We are all trying to show up a better part of our life, make an illusion of success, happiness for other people who don’t know you.

source study minus the reblog regurgitation, which doesn't even include the source link

https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/10.1521/jscp.2018.37.10.751

143 subjects and 1 study at UPenn equates to official?

Yeah, this one seems intuitive.

I've got several friends (on Facebook) who have posted memes about mental health, then they take a hiatus from FB for a while.

It really does seem unhealthy. Everybody is comparing their own life to everyone else's best facade.

So maybe what's happening is that we're taking information about actual (or imagined) peers and our pre-modern social brains are interpreting it as though our family/clan members are excluding and therefore rejecting us.

It really seems like we just haven't been mentally prepared yet as a species for the kind of socializing that the internet enables. Maybe new generations will be able to intuit it better.

The word "officially" really doesn't make any sense here.

whitepaper?