Replacing 30 minutes of social media use with physical activity boosts mental health

Key takeaways

• A combination of interventions that reduced social media use and increased physical activity was associated with a greater reduction in psychological burden caused by COVID-19 than either intervention alone.
• The social media intervention lowered screen time by about 37 minutes, but the combination intervention lowered it by 46 minutes. Likewise, a physical activity intervention increased weekly physical activity time by 40 minutes, but the combination intervention increased it by 1 hour and 39 minutes.

Replacing half an hour of social media time with physical activity was associated with improvements in mental health, according to researchers.

With the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruptions in daily life, “social media use became one of the main options for social interaction and pastime,” Julia Brailovskaia, PhD, of the Mental Health Research and Treatment Center at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany, and colleagues wrote in the Journal of Public Health.

Some people who feel a “heavy psychological burden” use social media excessively to alleviate feelings of anxiety and hopelessness, which can “foster one’s perception of social media as a significant source of happiness and satisfaction and thus contribute to further intensive use,” the researchers continued.

“Given that we don’t know for certain how long the coronavirus crisis will last, we wanted to know how to protect people’s mental health with services that are as free and low-threshold as possible,” Brailovskaia said in a press release.

The researchers recruited 642 volunteers who were randomly assigned to one of four groups:

• the social media group, which reduced daily social media use by half an hour for 2 weeks;
• the physical activity group, which continued to use social media as usual but added 30 minutes of daily physical activity;
• the combination group, which increased physical activity while reducing social media use; or
• the control group.

The participants also filled out surveys during the intervention and up to 6 months after, answering questions about their social media use, physical activity, satisfaction with life, feelings of depression or happiness, how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected them and more.

In all experimental groups, the researchers found a significant decrease in social media time and psychological burden related to COVID-19. The combination group had significant increases in physical activity and happiness and life satisfaction as well as a significant decrease in depression symptoms.

“This shows us how vital it is to reduce our availability online from time to time and to go back to our human roots,” Brailovskaia said in the release. “These measures can be easily implemented into one’s everyday life and they’re completely free — and, at the same time, they help us to stay happy and healthy in the digital age.”

Though all experimental groups had improvements, those in the combination group saw “stronger and more stable” outcomes. When it came to social media reduction, for example, participants in the social media group lowered their screen time by about 37 minutes, but the combination group lowered it by 46 minutes. Likewise, the participants in the physical activity group increased weekly physical activity time by 40 minutes, but those in the combination group increased it by an hour and 39 minutes.

“To weaken the emotional bond to social media use longitudinally, it is not enough to only decrease social media use time or to only provide people with healthier behavioral alternatives such as physical activity,” the researchers wrote. “Also, to foster the bond to physical activity longitudinally, it is not enough to only enhance the physical activity time. A combination of both interventions is important for a successful longitudinal reduction of the role social media use plays in one’s everyday life, while the meaning of physical activity increases.”

References:

Brailovskaia J, et al. J Public Health. 2022;doi:10.1007/s10389-022-01751-x.

Replacing social media use by physical activity. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/963995. Published Sept. 7, 2022. Accessed Sept. 28, 2022.