Health · Mental Health · 6 hrs ago
Instagram activity may offer clues about loneliness, study finds
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego studied Instagram activity from 415 college students to see whether it was linked to loneliness.
They compared posts, likes, comments, captions and photos with established measures of loneliness.
Less interaction on Instagram was associated with greater social loneliness, while negative expressions in posts and late-night activity were linked with emotional loneliness.
Photos containing fewer faces were also associated with higher loneliness across several measures, even after accounting for depression and anxiety.
The models showed a moderate ability to distinguish people with higher and lower loneliness scores, but were less effective at identifying whether people lacked friends or social support.
The findings show a link, not that Instagram use causes loneliness, and the participants were mainly women at university.
The researchers say any use of these digital clues to study mental health should be responsible and based on consent.
A study of 415 college students found that Instagram activity was associated with different types of loneliness.
Researchers identified links between social loneliness and lower social engagement, and between emotional loneliness and negative emotions and late-night posting.
Photos containing fewer faces were associated with higher loneliness across multiple measures.
Machine-learning models showed moderate ability to distinguish levels of loneliness but were less effective at identifying structural social isolation.
The researchers said the study cannot show whether Instagram behavior causes loneliness or reflects it.
- Who
- Researchers at the University of California, San Diego studied Instagram data from 415 college students.
- What
- The study found that patterns of Instagram activity were associated with different types of loneliness.
- When
- Not stated.
- Where
- Instagram data from college students; the researchers were at the University of California, San Diego.
- Why
- To examine whether Instagram activity could provide clues about loneliness.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
This story does not have a timeline yet.
- Study participants
- 415 college students
- Study institution
- University of California, San Diego
- Journal
- npj Mental Health Research
- UCLA Loneliness Scale model
- AUC score of 0.77
- Emotional and social loneliness models
- AUC score of 0.74 for each
What people are saying
Compared to EL, SL was more strongly associated with indicators of broad social participation (e.g., liking and commenting frequency, weekend posting, and the proportion of posts with faces), and higher engagement in these behaviors tended to accompany lower SL.
In contrast, EL was more strongly associated with negative affect (negative sentiment in language; sad or angry facial expressions) and late-night posting, consistent with evidence that loneliness co-occurs with affective distress and sleep disruption.