Social Media and Mental Health

Author(s)
Braghieri, Luca; Levy, Ro’ee; Makarin, Alexey
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Abstract
We provide quasi-experimental estimates of the impact of social media on mental health by leveraging a unique natural experiment: the staggered introduction of Facebook across US colleges. Our analysis couples data on student mental health around the years of Facebook’s expansion with a generalized difference-in-differences empirical strategy. We find that the rollout of Facebook at a college had a negative impact on student mental health. It also increased the likelihood with which students reported experiencing impairments to academic performance due to poor mental health. Additional evidence on mechanisms suggests the results are due to Facebook fostering unfavorable social comparisons. (JEL D91, I12, I23, L82)
Date issued
2022-11
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/165273
Department
Sloan School of Management
Journal
American Economic Review
Publisher
American Economic Association
Citation
Braghieri, Luca, Ro'ee Levy, and Alexey Makarin. 2022. "Social Media and Mental Health." American Economic Review 112 (11): 3660–93.
Version: Final published version
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