Can Social Media Improve Your Mental Health? - Page 3
By Reuters | 04 Nov, 2025

Whether your use of social media leads to depression and suicidal thoughts or elevates your engagement and security depends on how you use it.

In a study by Korean psychologists published in July 2025 on PubMed Central, problematic smartphone use was 9.3% in the 36-50 age group and 5.4% in the 50+ age group.[12] This result suggests that middle-aged and older individuals aren't free from problematic smartphone use or its negative consequences This might be attributed to the widespread popularity of smartphones in Korea, where even people in their 50s and 60s have high smartphone usage rates. Several Korean studies identify loneliness and anxiety as possible causes of this smartphone addiction.

Lisa Chan has created social media posts to help reduce the stigma attached by Asian society to seeking mental health counseling.  

A 2021 BYU research study published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence tracked 500 teens over 10 years.  Teenage girls who used social media for at least two to three hours per day at the beginning of the study — when they were about 13 years old — then greatly increased their use over time were at a higher clinical risk for suicide as emerging adults. 

Thus, BYU professor Sarah Coyne suggests parents limit young teens’ social media time to about 20 minutes a day, maintain access to their accounts and talk with teens frequently about what they’re seeing on social media.  She went on to state that “the goal is to teach [future adults] to be healthy users of social media, to use it in a way that helps them feel good about themselves and connect with other people, which is its real purpose.” 

Interestingly, Professor Coyne also discovered that girls and young women in general may be much more susceptible to the negative effects of social media on mental health because women tend to be more relationally attuned and sensitive to interpersonal stressors, and social media exacerbates that sensitivity while boys and young men tend to be less impacted in general. 

Conclusion

Social media platforms vary greatly in the positive and negative impacts on our mental health, with multiple studies suggesting a possible relationship between TikTok/YouTube use and depression among young adults.  It's worth noting that there was effort by content creators in 2024 to push hashtags like #MentalHealth and #MentalHealthAwareness, inspiring more than 25 million mental health videos to date. This movement suggests more positive than negative impact may be unlocked by popular platforms fighting mental health stigma and increasing openness among its audience rather. 

Some influential Asian-American creators fighting stigma and openly discussing mental health on popular social media apps include Anna Akana, Jenny Tzu-Mei Wang and Lisa Chan.  This reminds us of the importance of examining the unique effects of individual platforms, and how one uses each platform greatly impacts mental health outcomes. 

More research may be needed to identify the impact of social media use on mental health but it's probably no exaggeration to say that social media will continue to be closely intertwined with our mental health in the future, especially for young adults lured by the inherently addictive nature of the apps. 

Practical Tips

Here are some practical implications of how we can better use social media to align with our mental well-being:

- Audit your use: Notice what you do. Are you mostly scrolling mindlessly? Making frequent comparisons? Opening the app when you’re bored/anxious? 

- Switch from passive to active: Instead of endless browsing, try to use social media for something more engaging and uplifting. For example: posting meaningful content, interacting with supportive people, learning something.

- Set boundaries: Even though time alone isn’t the full story, limiting mindless use (especially when you’re stressed/hypersensitive) can reduce risk.

- Be mindful of content: If you’re seeing a lot of content that triggers comparison or rumination (“everyone’s succeeding”), consider muting or unfollowing those accounts, curating your feed to more grounded or positive sources.

- Use it with purpose: Use social media for networking, learning about industry trends, or following people whose journey you admire (but in a realistic way). That aligns with your goal to intentionally use social media as a tool rather than being sucked into it as an addiction. 

- Stay offline sometimes: Taking breaks or creating phone-free times can let your brain settle, reducing the constant checking loop.

- Note how you feel: After a session of social media use, check in: “Do I feel better, worse, no change?” Over time you’ll see patterns of what kinds of use are harmful vs helpful.