Social Media May Not Replace Real-Life Support: Study

Key Developments:

• Study links real-life support more strongly with lower loneliness
• Early-morning social media use was associated with depression
• Researchers caution that the findings do not establish causation

(Medical Xpress) — September 24, 2026: Two new studies by researchers at Oregon State University suggest that social media-based emotional support may not provide the same relationship with loneliness as support from real-life relationships, while social media use soon after waking was associated with depression among U.S. adults.

The research, reported by Oregon State University on September 22 and covered by MedicalXpress on September 23, examined two different patterns of social media use using the same nationally representative sample of 1,512 U.S. adults between the ages of 30 and 70. Participants completed questionnaires in July and August 2023.

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One study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, compared real-life emotional support with support received through social media and examined their relationship with loneliness.

Researchers found that participants with the lowest levels of real-life emotional support had more than eight times the odds of loneliness compared with those reporting the highest levels. Social-media-based emotional support also showed an association with loneliness when examined separately, but the relationship was substantially weaker. When both forms of support were considered together, only real-life emotional support remained significantly associated with loneliness.

Image Credit: Andrii Yalanskyi.

Geethika Koneru, a physician and graduate student who led the study, said, “When it comes to emotional support, our findings suggest that social media is not a substitute for the support we receive through our real-life relationships.”

She added, “When the two types of emotional support were directly compared, emotional support from social media was dwarfed by emotional support from real life.”

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The second study, published in the Journal of Prevention, examined whether the timing of social media use after waking was associated with depression. Researchers found that use within 30 minutes of waking remained associated with depression after accounting for total social media use and demographic factors.

According to the study, frequent social media use soon after waking was associated with more than twice the odds of depression compared with little or no use during that period. The researchers stressed, however, that the study does not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

Hyosin “Dawn” Kim, a research assistant professor at Oregon State University who led the study, said, “There’s a strong link between using social media within the first 30 minutes after waking and depression.”

While many of us enjoy staying connected on social media, excessive use can fuel feelings of anxiety, depression, and isolation. CREDIT: HelpGuide.org.

“But we don’t know whether using social media soon after waking contributes to depression, whether depression leads people to use social media when they wake up, or both,” Kim said.

Brian Primack, an Oregon State University physician and researcher who studies the public-health implications of media and technology, said the findings should not be interpreted as evidence that social media is inherently harmful.

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“While these findings don’t mean that social media is inherently harmful, they do suggest that we should think carefully about how we use it, both personally and as a society,” Primack said.

The researchers said both studies are notable because they focus on adults, who have received less research attention in this area than adolescents and young adults. Primack noted that adults are substantial social media users, while loneliness and depression remain public-health concerns across adulthood.

CREDIT: Sondury Rodriquez /THUNDERWORD.

The studies were funded by the National Institutes of Health. The findings provide evidence of associations between particular patterns of social media use, emotional support and mental health, but further longitudinal research is needed to determine how these relationships develop over time.

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