Social media and mental health of undergraduate medical students of Mysuru: cross sectional study

INTRODUCTION

Merriam Webster describes social media as “forms of electronic communication such as websites for social networking and micro blogging through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content. In the recent times social media has had a sporadic improvement in terms of quality, consumption and quantity. Consumers of social media have made online social communication as an essential part of their daily lives, manifested by increasing number of daily users. In fact, Facebook alone reported an estimated 1 billion active users on 27 august 2015, implying 1 in 7 people on earth used Facebook in a single day.^1-3

With the advent of internet and social networking sites, humans have become social more virtually than in person. This has lead to people living more isolated lives affecting one’s health and overall quality of life. Social media influences a person to behave a certain way, so as to be favourable for the society and bring about certain implications. Increased usage of social networking in the present era is a matter of concern among parents, society as well as researchers as it has shown its effect both positively and negatively on the mental health of the users. Majority of the day in the life of a younger generation is consumed by excessive use of social media web sites. These include sites which allow interaction through web 2.0 and 3.0 sites including sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, online gaming, YouTube etc. Their usage has expanded exponentially as they act as viable portals of entertainment.^4-6

Mental health is characterised as a state of well-being in which people are aware of their capacities, successfully navigate through daily challenges, perform well at work, and significantly improve the quality of life in their communities. The advantages and drawbacks of social media for mental health are currently being discussed. Social networking is a key component of mental health protection. Mental health, health behaviour, physical health, and mortality risk are all influenced by the quantity and quality of social contacts. Social media's link to mental health may be explained by the displaced behaviour theory. Numerous studies on the effects of social media have been undertaken, and it has been found that frequent usage of sites like Facebook may be linked to negative symptoms and indicators of depression, anxiety, and stress. Social media can also put a lot of pressure on users to project the stereotype that others want to see and to gain as much popularity as possible.^7-9

Social media has an immense influence on the day to day activities in the present era ranging from communication, health, marketing, politics education etc. Taking in consideration all the positivity and the influence we can get through social media, a keen eye needs to be placed on the damages and long term side effects of it for the human behaviour.¹⁰ The objective of this research was to assess the effect of social media on the mental health of individuals and see factors associated with it.

METHODS

Study area

A cross-sectional study conducted in MBBS students from first, second, third and fourth year and interns for two months in 367 students.

Inclusion criteria

Undergraduate medical students and interns, willing to give consent.

Exclusion criteria

Those who are not willing to give consent and those who are not using social media.

Method of collection of data

This cross-sectional study was conducted among 367 undergraduate students of MBBS and interns course for a period of two months from February 1^st to March 31^st, 2023. A sample size of 367 was calculated using the formula n = z2PQ/L2 by considering the prevalence of usage of more than 2 social media 50.5% from the study conducted by Lisa et al with an absolute allowable error of 5% and z= 1.96 (95% level of confidence).⁸ Participants were selected from first-year, second-year, third-year, fourth-year MBBS students and interns by simple random sampling method.

Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire contain details of socio-demographic profile and mental health status was assessed by general health questionnaire-12. The GHQ is a 12 item questionnaire based on four point Likert Scale designed by Goldberg.⁹ After all the questions are answered, numbers for each response was added to obtain a final score which suggests the level of psychological distress.

The severity of psychological distress is graded as 0-12 points: normal range 13-20 points: suggesting evidence of mental distress >20 points: severe problems with psychological distress.

The test covers the degree to which the social media use affects daily routine, social life, productivity, sleeping patterns and feelings.

Data analysis

Data were entered into MS excel and analysed SPSS Version 26.0 (IBM Corp. Released 2019. IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 26.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp). Frequencies and percentages were calculated for all the categorical variables. Chi square test was done to analyse the association between the socio-demographic factors and GHQ score.

RESULTS

Around 367 students participated in the study. Out of 367 students 39.07% (143) were females and 60.93% (223) were males. The mean age of students were 21.5years with a standard deviation of 2.5. Undergraduate medical students of first year 10.93% (40%), second year 35.52% (130), third year 11.75% (43), and fourth year 14.75% (54), interns 24.86% (91) participated in the study (Table 1).

Among the study population, the prevalence suggestive of distress was found to be 72.4% (265), and severe psychological distress was found to be 3.27% (12) while 14.7% were found to be normal (Table 2).

Among the participants, those using 1 app shows individuals lying in the normal range to be 17 (51.5%) in number and those with distress to be 16 (48.5%) in number, those using 2 apps are 27 (24.3%) and 84 (75.6%) respectively, those using 3 apps are 51 (36.7%) and 88 (63.3%) respectively, those using 4 apps are 17 (25.8%) and 49 (74.2%) respectively, and those using 5 apps are 5 (33.3%) and 10 (66.6%) respectively (Table 3).

There is no significant association between the socio-demographic factors, social media apps usage and the severity of distress among the participants (Table 4 and 5).

DISCUSSION

In the current study explored the effects of social media on the mental health of undergraduate students of medical college and interns of Mysuru. Among the study participants, the prevalence of distress was found to be 72.4% and that of severe psychological distress was 3.27% while people with no evidence of distress 14.4%, implying the negative impact of social media on the study population. The results found in this study are similar to the findings of distress in a cross sectional study conducted by Alexey et al among college students in the United States.³

The current study also found that among the participants, WhatsApp was used maximally 96.18% (353), followed by Instagram 74.38% (273), followed by YouTube 61.8% (227), followed by Facebook 4.63% (17) and others 33.24% (122) which included Snapchat and Twitter while according to the “Global social media statistics research summary 2023 conducted by Dave Chaffey shows Facebook to be the most popular and used app, followed by YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram.¹⁰

The limitation of the study here is the small sample size used and the limited diversity of the participants taken here as it was taken from a certain geographic area. The other limitation is the mode of data collection, which is the self-administered online mode. It can lead to recall bias from the participants, with face to face interview being the much more preferred way for data collection.

CONCLUSION

Effort of this study is to establish and explore the effects of social media on the mental health youth, which showed to have negatively impacted majority of the participants. The current study shows that there is a considerable percentage of participants either showing evidence of distress or severe psychological distress ranging from 48.5% among those who use 1 app to and 66.6% among those who use 5 apps. No doubt that the easy accessibility to internet has had tremendous benefits and has made life easier in the modern world, but the excessive use of social networking among the young especially at a crucial phase in their lives which considerably decided their future is a call for concern. While keeping in mind the benefits that come with the use of social media, the youth need to be educated on its use and its limitations counselled regarding its ill effects and necessary tolls for seeking help be made available at their disposal.

Funding: No funding sources

Conflict of interest: None declared

Ethical approval: The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee

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