Using social media can help prevent depression: study

TIANJIN -- Using social media may help prevent or reduce the symptoms of depression among middle-aged and elderly people, according to a Chinese study published in the international Translational Psychiatry journal.

A team of researchers led by Qi Yanling, a professor at Nankai University in Tianjin, analyzed data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. This ongoing panel survey focuses on Chinese residents aged 45 and older.

In a study conducted in 2018 and again in 2020, the researchers examined the relationship between social media use and the symptoms of depression. They tested longitudinal associations between the baseline social media activities of 9,121 respondents who did not report depressive symptoms in 2018 and the social media activities and depressive symptoms they reported over the two years that followed.

During the same period, they also evaluated whether social media use, including the use of online chat, gaming and shopping platforms, could help alleviate symptoms of depression among the 5,302 surveyed individuals who reported such symptoms in 2018.

Among respondents who initially reported no symptoms of depression, engaging in social media activities was associated with a 24 percent lower likelihood of developing such symptoms.

Among respondents who had reported symptoms in 2018, those who engaged in three or more out of the seven measured social media activities -- chatting, reading the news, watching videos, playing games, mobile payments, using WeChat and posting WeChat moments -- over the two-year period were 1.24 times more likely to revert to a non-depressive state compared to those who did not use social media. Furthermore, individuals who were constantly active on social media, engaging in social media activities in 2018 and 2020, were 1.36 times more likely to experience a positive shift.

Qi notes that due to China's rapidly aging society, the problem of depression among elderly people will become more prominent. She suggests that special attention should be paid to vulnerable groups, especially elderly people, women, and low-income and rural residents.

She advocates cost-effective prevention and control measures, such as subsidized mobile phones and mobile data for the elderly and the circulation of depression-related health education content on social media.

Official statistics show that 297 million Chinese people were aged 60 or above in 2023, accounting for 21.1 percent of the total population. According to the National Health Commission, the prevalence rate of depression in China was 2.1 percent in 2019, and that of anxiety disorders was 4.98 percent.