B4252 - The Digital Epidemiology of Social Media Behaviour and Mental Wellbeing in ALSPAC - 27/06/2023

B number: 
B4252
Principal applicant name: 
Oliver Davis | University of Bristol and MRC IEU (UK)
Co-applicants: 
Daniel Joinson, Dr Nina Di Cara, Professor Claire Haworth, Professor Nello Cristianini
Title of project: 
The Digital Epidemiology of Social Media Behaviour and Mental Wellbeing in ALSPAC
Proposal summary: 

Since 2012, declines in mental health have been observed. Many in the media and research have blamed these falls on the rise of social media. There are several ways that social media could harm mental health, for example through exposure to harmful content and interactions with other users, and disruption of sleep due to use of social media at nighttime. However, social media also has the potential to improve people’s mental health, for example by enabling them to make new friends, to keep in contact with existing friends and to access mental health education online. This project will use anonymized data from the Twitter accounts of a sample of consenting ALSPAC participants to explore this relationship between social media and mental health.

Impact of research: 
This research will enable exploration of the various proposed causal mechanisms between social media and mental health, and the identification of potentially harmful or helpful social media usage. This could inform the development of interventions aiming to mitigate harmful and promote helpful social media behaviour. Furthermore, knowledge of these causal relationship could help improve the robustness of machine learning models aiming to predict mental health status from behaviour on social media.
Date proposal received: 
Thursday, 9 February, 2023
Date proposal approved: 
Friday, 17 February, 2023
Keywords: 
Mental health - Psychology, Psychiatry, Cognition, Behaviour - e.g. antisocial behaviour, risk behaviour, etc., Mental health, Computer simulations/modelling/algorithms, Statistical methods, Cohort studies - attrition, bias, participant engagement, ethics, Environment - enviromental exposure, pollution, Psychology - personality, Social science, Statistical methods