How Do Different Social Media Platforms Affect Your Mood?

In this video, we compare how different social media platforms affect your mood and brain chemistry.
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Do a quick Google search on how social media affects your mood, and the results make it seem like all the social media platforms will plunge you into depression. Facebook shows everyone’s perfect life and exotic vacations. Expertly curated selfies abound on Instagram. But, if you look at the actual research, the results aren’t that simple. This is especially true with Snapchat. It’s pretty new to the research world, so it hasn’t been studied for that long. But, it may be that Snapchat affects your brain in a fundamentally different way.

Does social media use cause depression? *

Cause and effect is really difficult when looking at social media use. It’s really how you use the platform that determines what influence it will have on your mood.

How does using Snapchat compare to using other social media platforms, like Facebook or Twitter?

Research on Snapchat is pretty new, but some studies show that using Snapchat is more similar to an in-person, face-to-face conversation compared to Facebook or Twitter.

What is ephemerality?

Something that is ephemeral lasts for a very short time.

SOURCES:
Sharing the Small Moments: Ephemeral Social Interaction on Snapchat
http://cn.asc.upenn.edu/wp-content/up...

Children and Computers: New Technology -- Old Concerns
http://pcfly.info/doc/Computers/28.pdf

Internet Use and Psychological Well-Being: Effects of Activity and Audience
http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/27400...

Passive Facebook Use Undermines Affective Well-Being: Experimental and Longitudinal Evidence
https://ppw.kuleuven.be/okp/_pdf/Verd...

Facebook Blues: How You Use the Site Can Make You Depressed,
Say Researchers
https://ww2.kqed.org/futureofyou/2016...

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About KQED
KQED, an NPR and PBS affiliate in San Francisco, CA, serves Northern California and beyond with a public-supported alternative to commercial TV, Radio and web media.

Funding for Above the Noise is provided in part by S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, David Bulfer and Kelly Pope, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Dirk and Charlene Kabcenell Foundation, The Koret Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Smart Family Foundation, The Vadasz Family Foundation and the members of KQED.