oa Trending: A Systematic Review of Social Media Use’s Influence on Adolescent Anxiety and Depression

Background: With new technological advancements, adolescents can obtain devices that give them virtually unlimited access to social media (SM) which may impact adolescent mental health. Objectives: This literature review aims to evaluate the influence of social media use on adolescent anxiety and depression. Methods: A literature search of PubMed from June 2010 through June 2020 was completed for the following MeSH terms: social media, adolescent, anxiety, depression, and mental health. English language articles that discussed adolescents aged 13 to 18 years, anxiety and/or depression and SM were included. Extracted data included the SM platform, impact on anxiety and depression, interventions, temporal and dose-response relationships, and observed versus self-reported usage. Results: The majority of articles positively associated depression (82.6%) and anxiety (78.3%) with SM use. depression corresponded with cyber-bullying (42.1%), negative social perspective (21.0%), diminished self-esteem (15.8%), and sleep disturbance (10.5%). Anxiety corresponded with a negative social perspective (44.4%), diminished self-esteem (33.3%), sleep disturbance (16.7%), and cyber-bullying (16.7%). Many studies suggested the use of interventions to reduce depression (72.7%) and anxiety (72.7%), such as screen time restrictions (n=6) and social support (n=4), but lacked evaluation of their implementation. Conclusion: Current literature suggests a positive association between adolescent SM use with anxiety and depression. Our study highlights the need for further investigation of temporal and dose-response associations between SM use and adolescent mental health, and the potential benefits of SM-driven interventions.