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Review
. 2020 Jun 15;12(6):e8627.
doi: 10.7759/cureus.8627.

Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health: A Systematic Review

Fazida Karim  1   2 , Azeezat A Oyewande  3   4 , Lamis F Abdalla  5 , Reem Chaudhry Ehsanullah  1 , Safeera Khan  5
Affiliations
Review

Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health: A Systematic Review

Fazida Karim et al. Cureus. .

Abstract

Social media are responsible for aggravating mental health problems. This systematic study summarizes the effects of social network usage on mental health. Fifty papers were shortlisted from google scholar databases, and after the application of various inclusion and exclusion criteria, 16 papers were chosen and all papers were evaluated for quality. Eight papers were cross-sectional studies, three were longitudinal studies, two were qualitative studies, and others were systematic reviews. Findings were classified into two outcomes of mental health: anxiety and depression. Social media activity such as time spent to have a positive effect on the mental health domain. However, due to the cross-sectional design and methodological limitations of sampling, there are considerable differences. The structure of social media influences on mental health needs to be further analyzed through qualitative research and vertical cohort studies.

Keywords: mental health; prisma; social media; systematic review.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Gender distribution of social media audiences worldwide as of January 2020, sorted by platform
Figure 2
Figure 2. PRISMA diagram detailing the study identification and selection process
PRISMA, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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