The use of social media is found to be associated with increased risk of developing depression, according to a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine online Dec. 10.

990 participants aged from 18 to 30 years old took part in the study to look for the association between the use of social media and depression.

The researchers found that 9.6 percent of the participants develop depression over a six months period.

Analyzing the data it was found that there is a significant linear correlation between baseline social media use and depression development for every level of social media use (p_value < 0.001).

The odds of developing depression in the highest quartile of social media use ( 5 hours or more per day) to those in the lower quartile (2 hours or less per day) was found to be significant (adjusted odds ratio, 2.77; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.38 to 5.56).

But at the follow-up, baseline depression was not associated with increased use of social media, and this result supports the temporal relationship between social media use and depression which favors the notion of causality.

This means young young adults who spend many hours on social media daily are at high risk for developing depression in the near period of time.