Hopelab & Well Being Trust 13
Key Finding 4
Figure 4. Reported frequency of social media
use, by PHQ-8 depressive symptoms
Percent of 14- to 22-year-olds who say they use
social media…
This survey did not find a statistically significant bivariate relation-
ship between how frequently young people use social media and
their current symptoms of depression.
Again, because this survey only captures respondents' own reports
about their social media use, we do not know how well these findings
correlate with objectively-measured behavior. And because this survey
asked "how often" but did not ask respondents to estimate the total
amount of time they spend on social media per day, it is possible that
there are differences in the length of time devoted to social media
use that don't show up in our measures of frequency of use. And finally,
the data presented here are for the population of 14- to 22-year-olds
as whole; it is possible that more detailed future analyses may uncover
relationships in specific subsets of this population.
Source: Hopelab/Well Being Trust Teens and Young Adults Survey,
February-March 2018. N=1,337 young people ages 14-22.
Note: Differences depicted in this chart are not statistically significant
at p<.05.
16%
62%
11%
10%
21%
59%
16%
4%
Almost constantly
Several times a day
Less than daily
Don't use social media
Among those with no
depressive symptoms
Among those with
moderate to severe
depressive symptoms
• Among the population of 14- to 22-year-olds as a whole,
we looked at whether respondents with moderate to severe
depressive symptoms, as indicated by PHQ-8 scores, reported
using social media more frequently than those with no depres-
sive symptoms.
• Twenty-one percent of those with moderate to severe depres
sive symptoms described themselves as "constant" users
of social media, as did 16% of those with no symptoms (not
a statistically significant difference). Similarly, 59% of those
with moderate to severe symptoms and 62% of those with
no symptoms said they use social media "several times as
day," also not a significant difference.
Key Findings
