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By Jasmine Laws
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One social media habit has been found to be strongly associated with the symptoms of a number of mental health conditions including anxiety and depression.
Researchers working in Norway reviewed how five behaviors online affected mental health, including hostility from and towards others, social comparison, passing time, and seeking support.
They found that social comparison was "the strongest predictor" for symptoms of five mental health conditions, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and major depressive disorder.
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The study was published in the journal Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health on October 17.
"This ties in with a growing body of research that's trying to look at different types of social media use and its effects – we're starting to move beyond overly simple measures of 'screen time', and even beyond overly simple measures of active engagement versus passive scrolling," Peter Etchells, a professor of psychology and science communication at Bath Spa University, told Newsweek.
He said that social comparison is "one such lens, and researchers are increasingly interested in how different types of social comparison work, for example, how scrolling through content that is relevant to our own interests and shows people doing well, versus examples of 'failures'."
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The team of experts included more than 4,000 adolescents from Norway in the study. The group had a mean age of 14, and the researchers reviewed their social media use through the Social Media Use Scale, which covers the five behaviors: hostility from others, social comparison, passing time, seeking support, and hostility towards others.
The participants also completed a questionnaire over the phone, which enabled the researchers to measure their symptoms of the five mental health conditions.
They found that social comparison online accounted for 20 to 26 percent of variance in symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and major depressive disorder, and six to nine percent in symptoms of ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder.
Experiencing hostility from others was the second strongest predictor, explaining three to six percent of variance across all mental health conditions, the researchers said.
They also said that simply passing time on social media did not appear to show an independent association with the symptoms of any of the mental health conditions reviewed.
However, as the findings were collected at a single moment in time, and the participants were not monitored over a longer period, it is not clear whether the mental health-related symptoms experienced by the participants proceeded the specific social media behaviors.
"Because we don't have long-term data looking at the trajectories of those two things, you can't say what comes first, i.e. does poorer mental health result in increased engagement with social media in a certain type of way, or vice versa," Etchells said.
Therefore, while the findings emphasize a need to investigate the true impact of social comparison on mental health, they do not confirm an association.
However, Etchells added that "it's nice to see more research that's making genuine efforts to go beyond simple measures like the amount of time spent on social media, and try to figure out in a more nuanced manner how interacting with social media in different ways might result in different impacts."
"What we want to be looking for, over the long term, is convergent evidence – results from lots of different, well-conducted studies that align on the same finding," he said.
Etchells said that "not all social media time is the same, so if someone is worried about their own use, it's more instructive to look at how, when and why they're engaging with social media and what they're getting out of it, rather than just the gross amount of time."
"If they're not feeling better after having been on a particular platform, that's a good signal that something needs to change," he said.
Reference
Brunborg, G.S., Zetterqvist, M., Bang, L. et al. (2026) Specific aspects of social media use and their associations with symptoms of five mental disorders among adolescents. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-026-01196-0
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Marc Vargas and Paul Donnelley.
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