According to a study, people who spend more than two hours on social networks feel more isolated than those who use them only for half an hour a day
Sociologists and experts in new media have been saying it for years: the Internet makes us more and more lonely. Especially if the discourse then extends to social networks. A new study affirms, in fact, a correlation between the sense of loneliness and the time spent on social platforms.
According to the School of Medicine of the University of Pittsburgh, people who spend more than two hours on social media tend to feel more isolated from a social point of view.
The work of the American university group, which was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, highlights how social networks do not always reduce "distances". From the study emerges, instead, a worrying fact, also considering that, as scientists claim, there would be a link between loneliness and many diseases. Social isolation, in fact, would increase, according to other research, the mortality rate.
The research methodology
The research, led by Brian A. Primack, was conducted in 2014 on a group of American adults aged between 19 and 32. Through questionnaires to volunteers were asked about the time spent on some of the main social platforms: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Google+, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Vine. The results showed that people who spend more than two hours on social media are more likely to feel lonely than those who use it for less than half an hour a day.
Does social isolate people?"
The study by U.S. researchers adds to other investigations in the past that have claimed there is a relationship between social media and social isolation. The research, however, did not clarify whether it is loneliness that drives people to spend more time on Facebook or if it is social media on the contrary that increases the level of loneliness. It is possible, as the scientists argue, that the perception of social isolation is caused by a combination of loneliness and social media use.
Possible causes
The authors of the study identify a few possible reasons. Time spent on social media, according to the researchers, decreases social relationships in the real world. Then the publication of photos and videos of our friends in happy situations would make us feel, as other research also states, excluded and in some cases would also lead us to feel a kind of envy.