I was reading up on some RCTs on social media and mental health recently and one of the surprising findings is that social media is actually worse for older people.

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krackers 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That makes sense, they haven't "built immunity".

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tietjens 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Can you share some things you were reading?

	▲	alwa an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Not OP, and I’ve been looking at more meta-analyses than RCTs, but: * Lei et al 2024 metaanalysis, generally positive associations but no causal evidence for psychosocial effects, especially when the social media use is family-directed - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-psycho... * Balki et al 2022, metaanalysis, same thing: good for reinforcing existing real-human social connections, overcoming barriers to/increasing regularity and frequency of contact, acquiring access to resources; isolating to use outside that context; regular and frequent contact much more effective than occasional or episodic: https://aging.jmir.org/2022/4/e40125/ My overall impression seems to be what common sense tells us: to the extent it lets you overcome aging-related obstacles to interacting with real people, great; to the extent it’s brain rot, it’s isolating.
	▲	impure an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		This is the one I read: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032... which says how older participants benefit more from restricting social media use.