TUESDAY, Dec. 19, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Flipping through Instagram or TikTok might seem like a good way to relax during a work break, but social media actually could be making you less happy on the job.
Workers who cut down on their social media use 30 minutes a day on the job had better mental health, job satisfaction and commitment to their occupation, a new study reports.
“The participants in this group felt less overworked and were more committed on the job than the control group,” who kept using social media as they always had, lead researcher Julia Brailovskaia, an investigator with the Mental Health Research and Treatment Center at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, said in a university news release.
Social media has become an important part of many people’s lives, but research has shown that it can boost a person’s FoMO, or fear of missing out, researchers said. Users worry they’ll miss something happening online if they don’t continually check in.
So Brailovskaia and her colleagues decided to see whether escaping reality through social media might have long-term consequences, by promoting addictive behavior that saps a person’s focus and effectiveness.
The team recruited 166 people working either full- or part-time in a variety of jobs. All of the participants spent at least 35 minutes a day on social media use not related to their work.
Half chosen at random were asked to cut back their social media use by 30 minutes a day for seven days, while the others continued as always.
Questionnaires revealed that cutting back on social media reduced participants’ FoMO.
“Even after this short period of time, we found that the group that spent 30 minutes less a day on social media significantly improved their job satisfaction and mental health,” Brailovskaia said.
The benefits lasted for at least a week after the experiment's end, and in some cases even grew. Some participants who had reduced their daily social media use voluntarily continued to do so even after the week-long experiment.
While social media can be enjoyable, researchers said too much use can become a distraction that makes a person feel overworked because they’re spending less time getting tasks done.
“Our brains can’t cope well with constant distraction from a task,” Brailovskaia said. “People who frequently stop what they’re doing in order to catch up on their social media feed find it more difficult to focus on their work and they achieve poorer results.”
Workers also might start feeling alienated if they’re spending less time interacting with their real-life colleagues because of their social media use, the researchers added.
The results are in line with prior research, which has shown that cutting daily social media consumption by 20 to 30 minutes can reduce symptoms of depression and improve mental health, researchers said.
“Reducing the amount of time spent on social media each day could be a useful addition to business coaching training, mental health programs and psychotherapeutic interventions,” Brailovskaia said.
The findings were published in the journal Behavior and Information Technology.
More information
Columbia University has more about the harmful effects of social media.
SOURCE: Rurh University Bochum, news release, Dec. 15, 2023
