ArticleJournal of medical Internet research2023
Social Media Use and Its Concurrent and Subsequent Relation to a Biological Marker of Inflammation: Short-Term Longitudinal Study.
Article in Journal of medical Internet research, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Inflammation is associated with greater social media use over face-to-face interaction, especially among individuals high in introversion or neuroticism.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Investigating psychosocial factors and systemic inflammation using dried blood spots: a scoping review.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Article
- Social media use and weight bias internalization: association moderated by age and weight perception.Journal of eating disorders · 2024Article
- Won't We Know If It's Toxic? A Review of the Impacts of Social Media on Public Health.Missouri medicineArticle
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAlthough many studies have examined the impact of social media use (SMU) on mental health, very few studies have examined the association of SMU with health-relevant biomarkers.
objectiveAddressing this gap, we conducted a short-term longitudinal study examining the link between SMU and C-reactive protein (CRP), a biological marker of systemic inflammation predictive of major depression, chronic diseases, and mortality.
methodsWe measured college students' weekly amount of SMU for 5 consecutive weeks objectively via the Screen Time app and collected blood samples at baseline and 5 weeks later.
resultsIn separate cross-sectional analyses conducted at phase 1 (baseline) and at phase 2 (5 weeks after baseline), objective SMU had a positive, concurrent association with CRP at both time points. Critically, in a longitudinal analysis, more SMU between phase 1 and phase 2 predicted increased CRP between these time points, suggesting that increased SMU led to heightened inflammation during that period.
conclusionsAlthough more research is needed to understand why SMU led to higher inflammation, the association between objective SMU and a marker of a biological process critical to physical health presents an intriguing opportunity for future research on social media effects.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.