Here’s a fact that probably won’t surprise you:
Exposure to social media has a negative effect on teen depression.
Now, here’s a fact that probably will surprise you:
According to a leading researcher, “eating potatoes has the exact same negative effect.”
I’m not kidding!
When you look at the actual research, it turns out that the effect of social media on teen depression is extremely small. Specifically, social media can explain 0.36 percent of teen depression symptoms. And even then, the study only found covariance among girls, there was none for boys.
That means 99.64 percent of teen girls’ depressive symptoms aren’t related to social media. Similarly, 99.64 percent of depressive symptoms aren’t related to potatoes. Not only that, but listening to music — any music — has 13 times the negative effect on teen depression that social media does.
Weirdly enough, I haven’t heard an outcry about kids’ access to music, or to french fries. Have you?
The disconnect here is that people tend to care more about whether there’s “an effect” than how big that effect is.
In statistics, we call this effect versus effect size.
