Offering depressed patients therapy to help them cut down on social media use can improve their mental health, a study suggests. However simply telling them to stop using the sites is less likely to be helpful in boosting low mood, researchers found.
Researchers from University College London analysed 23 studies carried out globally between 2004 and last year that evaluated social media interventions, which included abstaining from or limiting use of sites, alongside therapy-based techniques such as cognitive behavioural therapy.
Interventions improved mental wellbeing in 39 per cent of the 23 studies, although there were mixed effects in a further 30 per cent and no effect in another 30 per cent. People with depression benefited the most. Seventy per cent of the studies that looked
