Does one week off social media reduce depression and anxiety?

Giving up social media for a week could reduce depression, anxiety, and insomnia in young adults, according to a new study.

The research, published in the journal Jama Network Open, recruited 373 young people between the ages of 18 and 24 to spend two weeks using Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and X, while the team collected their usage data.

Almost 80 per cent of the participants took a one-week detox from social media immediately after the test, with the rest opting out. All participants were asked to record how they felt before, during, and after the detox.

One in four participants noted lower rates of depression after the detox, while 16 per cent noted less anxiety and 15 per cent saw improvements in insomnia symptoms.

The detox proved most effective for young people who reported high levels or moderate depression, anxiety, or insomnia issues before the study, the paper said.

But the researchers found taking a social media break didn’t help loneliness, which they attributed to participants going a week without regular engagement, comments or likes from their community.

Josep Maria Suelves, a researcher at the Open University of Catalonia, said that while social media can help with human interaction, “frequent and prolonged use of these tools can interfere with healthy behaviours," such as exercise and sleep, or "increase exposure to negative social influences, posing health risks from sedentary lifestyles, insufficient rest, social isolation, or even mental disorders such as depression or addiction”.

Screen time was not entirely eliminated for participants. On average, they still spent 30 minutes on their phones every day, but this was down from almost two hours they spent on their phones before the detox. ​

Young people broke their detox for two apps in particular, Instagram and Snapchat, while they were less likely to log into Facebook, X, and TikTok.

More studies are needed

The researchers say more studies are needed to determine the optimal duration of social media detoxes for reducing overall depression and anxiety rates.

They also called for more testing on more diverse populations, given that most of their participants were female, college-aged, and highly educated.

Suelves said other studies should also measure the impact of reduced social media on other negative habits, such as “sedentary behaviour” or “reduced hours of rest and personal interactions”.José Perales, psychology professor at the University of Granada, said that another limitation of the study is that the detox phase was voluntary.

Letting some participants choose whether to participate or not could change the overall results, he said.

“Self-selection is considered bad practice, as it introduces bias by allowing only the most motivated or those with the highest expectations to participate,” he said.

Perales said the relevance of the study is “very modest,” and might join “the long list of inconclusive and easily overinterpreted studies” in this area.