5 ms·

> increased levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), which the liver makes in response to inflammation in the body, can promote social media use among middle-aged ad

by harles 3y ago

> increased levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), which the liver makes in response to inflammation in the body, can promote social media use among middle-aged adults and college students. Sounds like they found correlation and called it causation. I’m keeping an open mind, but I find this article dubious. No link to any of the studies, no alternative explanations (I would guess any negative health markers are associated with higher tech use), and the title is a little too strong “Inflammation linked to social media use” would be easier to swallow, or even “contributes to”. I find press releases like this both not useful and overall bad for the scientific community. It’s unfortunate because this may genuinely be an interesting line of research.

nonameiguess 3y ago
It'd be nice if they included a link or even the title of the paper being referenced here to see the methods. It's hard for me to imagine how causation could even be investigated for this. You'd need to randomly induce inflammation on purpose to study participants, which seems like something you couldn't get through an IRB, nor would anybody consent to it if you could. Otherwise, sure, you're telling me all of the factors associated with inflammation, i.e. illness, disability, injury, sedentary life, are also associated with people spending more time on social media than they might otherwise, doesn't seem like a revelation.
- ceroxylon 3y ago
  Found the paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0889159123001289 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S08891...
  - iak8god 3y ago
    Most people won't be able to access the paper via that link. I was able to get to it by going to Google Scholar and searching "Brain, Behavior and Immunity" david lee. The first result was a sciencedirect link that did allow me to read the whole thing.
    - ceroxylon 3y ago
      My link was the sciencedirect link, and I could read it immediately. What do you mean?
      - iak8god 3y ago
        I mean that the full article is paywalled for me at that link.
gdubs 3y ago
Right, came here to ask if anyone had read the paper and looked at the correlation / causation methodology. Because another obvious hypothesis is that social media causes some kind of fight-or-flight response in people that triggers inflammation.
- jablongo 3y ago
  I think it’s a pretty basic/uninteresting relation; for a subset of users, being inflamed causes them to be uncomfortable which causes them to post about being uncomfortable, probably sometimes talking about inflammation itself (for a super meta example, see posts in this thread).
  - lazide 3y ago
    Or being uncomfortable causes them to want to seek comfort (social?), but lacking adaptive outlets they instead do maladaptive ones like social media. Like gambling to thrill seek because of stress from overdue bills.
  - captainbland 3y ago
    imo: inflammatory conditions often lead to fatigue and discomfort which makes physical activities less appealing and sedentary activities more appealing. Social media is already very accessible and highly 'rewarding' so the incentive to use it is very strong. (super meta: I am tired and uncomfortable and am spending stupid amounts of time reading reddit/HN)
- iak8god 3y ago
  Here's what they say in the abstract: > Providing stronger evidence of the directionality of this effect, Study 3 (N = 171) showed that in college students CRP predicted increased social media use in the subsequent week even after controlling for current week’s use. The basic methodology for this part is: * Blood sample (measured for CRP) * 1 week later: survey on social media use (participants using Screen Time app to objectively measure their activity) * 1 week after that: survey on social media use again Then they ran some regression analyses. I didn't see anything here that rules out the alternative possible explanation: college students who use social media more are more stressed out as a result of their social media use.
m1sta_ 3y ago
I personally use social media much more often when my CRP is high.
- polskibus 3y ago
  How do you monitor it continuously?
InSteady 3y ago
n=1 anecdotal reflection here. I've had have chronic low grade inflammation from two different disorders for a very long time, including a GI disorder that definitely triggers my liver to work overtime (experienced in the form of general soreness, occasional stabs of pain in liver area and indications of impaired bile production and/or bile acid malabsorption, or BAM, during my longer flare-ups). So CRP is probably on the menu for me on a frequent basis. The inflammatory aspect makes me feel like a complete zombie after several days of flaring up. I highly doubt this is a unique subjective experience. In fact, if you do some googling, you will find that chronic low-grade inflammation (as well as disruptions of the GI tract / microbiome) are quite strongly linked to treatment resistant depression, which is another thing I happen to have. I haven't personally read studies investigating it, but I suspect "brain fog" and attention/memory issues are also strongly correlated with chronic inflammation, even of the 'low grade' variety. When I get into these states, brought on by flare-ups, my mind wants nothing more than to zone out in such a way as to increase the perceived speed with which time passes. Because time is basically the only thing that can get me out of a bad flare-up (as long as I avoid a huge list of foods and activities and strictly follow certain protocols as well). If I could sleep through all of it that would be ideal (a common refrain among the chronically depressed). And at the same time, stress and complicated situations increase the chances that I do something wrong that is likely to extend the flare-up (which to me suggests an adaptive role of depression during chronic health problems). Even watching movies and TV feel too effortful at times: you have to focus on a storyline, remember what characters said and did, and maintain some emotional connection to the story in order to be engaged and thus have time pass quickly... all which takes effort. Social media truly is the high fructose corn syrup + hydrogenated palm oil of passive time-wasting activities. Getting into "the zone" in terms of mindlessly clicking as minutes and hours pass by in a flash takes almost zero effort once you are accustomed (read: addicted) to it. And everything is so bite-sized and condensed, it is perfectly tailored to someone who is having more trouble than normal focusing, staying engaged, and remembering stuff (even what was said/read 2 minutes ago).
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  Hey, can I ask what GI disorder is giving you BAM? I have Crohn's and suspect that this latest flare is giving me bile issues on top of everything else (was literally digging into the literature about it this morning, so your comment was serendipitous, lol) but I'm not sure if it's more closely correlated with non-IBD disorders than it is with Crohn's and the like.
colordrops 3y ago
Not scientific, but funny enough I was just thinking of my social media use last night, and I came to the realization that I use it as a way to distract from unpleasant feelings and as a pain killer. If I'm hungover, or sick, or worried about work, my social media usage goes up significantly. Don't know if this is true for everyone but the study's findings match my personal experience.
iak8god 3y ago
> I find press releases like this both not useful and overall bad for the scientific community. University media offices seem to think it's their job to misinterpret and exaggerate scientific findings in whatever way will draw the most clicks to their press release. I've only had a chance to skim, but there's all kinds of weirdness here. In "Study 3" they measure 171 college students' social media use on Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, ignoring TikTok, which those subjects probably use more than all the others combined.
- InSteady 3y ago
  Is it possible that the process of getting access to trustworthy and complete datasets is more streamlined with these American companies than it is for TikTok? It's hard to imagine the researchers ignored TikTok purely as an oversight, although it's certainly possible.
  - iak8god 3y ago
    They had students use screen tracking software to log what apps they were using. The researchers ignored TikTok because it wasn't included in some pre-existing methodology they were following. Ignoring TikTok for any reason in 2021-2022 is a huge mistake. Once I saw that, I decided I'm not interested in their findings.
    - InSteady 3y ago
      That's fair. It sounds like they wanted to iterate on something that's been established on a preliminary basis, which makes the choice to stay within the parameters of of the original study likely the correct one. We have to be choosy about which variables we tweak when building upon previous works, otherwise people will correctly point out ambiguities if not outright flaws in reasoning when the authors analyze current results in the context of the previous study (the whole point of iterating). This approach does have it's drawbacks though, such as rapidly fading into irrelevance and obscurity given the ever-changing landscape of the study environment. It is of course your prerogative to disregard research as you see fit, but hopefully we can agree that this isn't bad science (at least not on that basis), even if you find the results uninteresting.
tempsy 3y ago
Yeah I see chronic inflammation as a sign someone isn't particularly disciplined when it comes to diet or exercise. There's likely some correlation with being undisciplined with your physical health and being undisciplined when it comes to mindlessly consuming social media.
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  Chronic inflammation is the hallmark of dozens (if not hundreds) of autoimmune disorders. Discipline has nothing to do with it.
  - tempsy 3y ago
    What? Body inflammation in the modern world is of course impacted by diet and exercise.
    - spondylosaurus 3y ago
      Sure, diet and exercise absolutely have an impact (and so do stress, and your environment, and your genes), but you specifically claimed that "chronic inflammation [is] a sign someone isn't particularly disciplined when it comes to diet or exercise," but more often chronic inflammation is a sign of an unchecked autoimmune condition. Also worth noting that some estimates claim that between 5 and 10% of Americans have at least one autoimmune disease, and on average it takes patients four years[1] to receive a diagnosis, let alone treatment. If I had a dollar for every person who suggested something was wrong with my (healthy, vegetarian) diet when it turns out my immune system is brute-force attacking my gut and spine... [1] https://www.staffcare.com/locum-tenens-blog/news/most-difficult-autoimmune-diseases-to-diagnose/ https://www.staffcare.com/locum-tenens-blog/news/most-diffic...
conductr 3y ago
I thought the same thing on correlation/causation. However, the most SM active person I know also has lupus so it checks out /s I tend to think being idle is what drives most SM usage. Inflammation just happens to drive idle time because of pain being the alternative.
AtlasBarfed 3y ago
A more concerning relationship would be social media use induces inflammation / inflammatory responses. Perhaps the study controlled for the inverse causation, but maybe not. So if there is correlation, the opposite causation would imply a more pernicious outcome, combined with the fact that social media use is addictive. Some inflammatory event causing social media use like injury is a lot more limited than social media use by billions of people increasing stress. The short article didn't really assuage me of this. It shouldn't be debatable that social media use increases the sensation that you are being watched/looked at by more people than normal. It would be a given that this increases stress and tension.

by harles 3y ago

nonameiguess 3y ago

It'd be nice if they included a link or even the title of the paper being referenced here to see the methods. It's hard for me to imagine how causation could even be investigated for this. You'd need to randomly induce inflammation on purpose to study participants, which seems like something you couldn't get through an IRB, nor would anybody consent to it if you could. Otherwise, sure, you're telling me all of the factors associated with inflammation, i.e. illness, disability, injury, sedentary life, are also associated with people spending more time on social media than they might otherwise, doesn't seem like a revelation.

ceroxylon 3y ago
Found the paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0889159123001289 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S08891...
- iak8god 3y ago
  Most people won't be able to access the paper via that link. I was able to get to it by going to Google Scholar and searching "Brain, Behavior and Immunity" david lee. The first result was a sciencedirect link that did allow me to read the whole thing.
  - ceroxylon 3y ago
    My link was the sciencedirect link, and I could read it immediately. What do you mean?
    - iak8god 3y ago
      I mean that the full article is paywalled for me at that link.

gdubs 3y ago

Right, came here to ask if anyone had read the paper and looked at the correlation / causation methodology. Because another obvious hypothesis is that social media causes some kind of fight-or-flight response in people that triggers inflammation.

jablongo 3y ago
I think it’s a pretty basic/uninteresting relation; for a subset of users, being inflamed causes them to be uncomfortable which causes them to post about being uncomfortable, probably sometimes talking about inflammation itself (for a super meta example, see posts in this thread).
- lazide 3y ago
  Or being uncomfortable causes them to want to seek comfort (social?), but lacking adaptive outlets they instead do maladaptive ones like social media. Like gambling to thrill seek because of stress from overdue bills.
- captainbland 3y ago
  imo: inflammatory conditions often lead to fatigue and discomfort which makes physical activities less appealing and sedentary activities more appealing. Social media is already very accessible and highly 'rewarding' so the incentive to use it is very strong. (super meta: I am tired and uncomfortable and am spending stupid amounts of time reading reddit/HN)
iak8god 3y ago
Here's what they say in the abstract: > Providing stronger evidence of the directionality of this effect, Study 3 (N = 171) showed that in college students CRP predicted increased social media use in the subsequent week even after controlling for current week’s use. The basic methodology for this part is: * Blood sample (measured for CRP) * 1 week later: survey on social media use (participants using Screen Time app to objectively measure their activity) * 1 week after that: survey on social media use again Then they ran some regression analyses. I didn't see anything here that rules out the alternative possible explanation: college students who use social media more are more stressed out as a result of their social media use.

m1sta_ 3y ago

I personally use social media much more often when my CRP is high.

polskibus 3y ago
How do you monitor it continuously?

InSteady 3y ago

n=1 anecdotal reflection here. I've had have chronic low grade inflammation from two different disorders for a very long time, including a GI disorder that definitely triggers my liver to work overtime (experienced in the form of general soreness, occasional stabs of pain in liver area and indications of impaired bile production and/or bile acid malabsorption, or BAM, during my longer flare-ups). So CRP is probably on the menu for me on a frequent basis. The inflammatory aspect makes me feel like a complete zombie after several days of flaring up. I highly doubt this is a unique subjective experience. In fact, if you do some googling, you will find that chronic low-grade inflammation (as well as disruptions of the GI tract / microbiome) are quite strongly linked to treatment resistant depression, which is another thing I happen to have. I haven't personally read studies investigating it, but I suspect "brain fog" and attention/memory issues are also strongly correlated with chronic inflammation, even of the 'low grade' variety. When I get into these states, brought on by flare-ups, my mind wants nothing more than to zone out in such a way as to increase the perceived speed with which time passes. Because time is basically the only thing that can get me out of a bad flare-up (as long as I avoid a huge list of foods and activities and strictly follow certain protocols as well). If I could sleep through all of it that would be ideal (a common refrain among the chronically depressed). And at the same time, stress and complicated situations increase the chances that I do something wrong that is likely to extend the flare-up (which to me suggests an adaptive role of depression during chronic health problems). Even watching movies and TV feel too effortful at times: you have to focus on a storyline, remember what characters said and did, and maintain some emotional connection to the story in order to be engaged and thus have time pass quickly... all which takes effort. Social media truly is the high fructose corn syrup + hydrogenated palm oil of passive time-wasting activities. Getting into "the zone" in terms of mindlessly clicking as minutes and hours pass by in a flash takes almost zero effort once you are accustomed (read: addicted) to it. And everything is so bite-sized and condensed, it is perfectly tailored to someone who is having more trouble than normal focusing, staying engaged, and remembering stuff (even what was said/read 2 minutes ago).

spondylosaurus 3y ago
Hey, can I ask what GI disorder is giving you BAM? I have Crohn's and suspect that this latest flare is giving me bile issues on top of everything else (was literally digging into the literature about it this morning, so your comment was serendipitous, lol) but I'm not sure if it's more closely correlated with non-IBD disorders than it is with Crohn's and the like.

colordrops 3y ago

Not scientific, but funny enough I was just thinking of my social media use last night, and I came to the realization that I use it as a way to distract from unpleasant feelings and as a pain killer. If I'm hungover, or sick, or worried about work, my social media usage goes up significantly. Don't know if this is true for everyone but the study's findings match my personal experience.

iak8god 3y ago

> I find press releases like this both not useful and overall bad for the scientific community. University media offices seem to think it's their job to misinterpret and exaggerate scientific findings in whatever way will draw the most clicks to their press release. I've only had a chance to skim, but there's all kinds of weirdness here. In "Study 3" they measure 171 college students' social media use on Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, ignoring TikTok, which those subjects probably use more than all the others combined.

InSteady 3y ago
Is it possible that the process of getting access to trustworthy and complete datasets is more streamlined with these American companies than it is for TikTok? It's hard to imagine the researchers ignored TikTok purely as an oversight, although it's certainly possible.
- iak8god 3y ago
  They had students use screen tracking software to log what apps they were using. The researchers ignored TikTok because it wasn't included in some pre-existing methodology they were following. Ignoring TikTok for any reason in 2021-2022 is a huge mistake. Once I saw that, I decided I'm not interested in their findings.
  - InSteady 3y ago
    That's fair. It sounds like they wanted to iterate on something that's been established on a preliminary basis, which makes the choice to stay within the parameters of of the original study likely the correct one. We have to be choosy about which variables we tweak when building upon previous works, otherwise people will correctly point out ambiguities if not outright flaws in reasoning when the authors analyze current results in the context of the previous study (the whole point of iterating). This approach does have it's drawbacks though, such as rapidly fading into irrelevance and obscurity given the ever-changing landscape of the study environment. It is of course your prerogative to disregard research as you see fit, but hopefully we can agree that this isn't bad science (at least not on that basis), even if you find the results uninteresting.

tempsy 3y ago

Yeah I see chronic inflammation as a sign someone isn't particularly disciplined when it comes to diet or exercise. There's likely some correlation with being undisciplined with your physical health and being undisciplined when it comes to mindlessly consuming social media.

spondylosaurus 3y ago
Chronic inflammation is the hallmark of dozens (if not hundreds) of autoimmune disorders. Discipline has nothing to do with it.
- tempsy 3y ago
  What? Body inflammation in the modern world is of course impacted by diet and exercise.
  - spondylosaurus 3y ago
    Sure, diet and exercise absolutely have an impact (and so do stress, and your environment, and your genes), but you specifically claimed that "chronic inflammation [is] a sign someone isn't particularly disciplined when it comes to diet or exercise," but more often chronic inflammation is a sign of an unchecked autoimmune condition. Also worth noting that some estimates claim that between 5 and 10% of Americans have at least one autoimmune disease, and on average it takes patients four years[1] to receive a diagnosis, let alone treatment. If I had a dollar for every person who suggested something was wrong with my (healthy, vegetarian) diet when it turns out my immune system is brute-force attacking my gut and spine... [1] https://www.staffcare.com/locum-tenens-blog/news/most-difficult-autoimmune-diseases-to-diagnose/ https://www.staffcare.com/locum-tenens-blog/news/most-diffic...

conductr 3y ago

I thought the same thing on correlation/causation. However, the most SM active person I know also has lupus so it checks out /s I tend to think being idle is what drives most SM usage. Inflammation just happens to drive idle time because of pain being the alternative.

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

A more concerning relationship would be social media use induces inflammation / inflammatory responses. Perhaps the study controlled for the inverse causation, but maybe not. So if there is correlation, the opposite causation would imply a more pernicious outcome, combined with the fact that social media use is addictive. Some inflammatory event causing social media use like injury is a lot more limited than social media use by billions of people increasing stress. The short article didn't really assuage me of this. It shouldn't be debatable that social media use increases the sensation that you are being watched/looked at by more people than normal. It would be a given that this increases stress and tension.