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People A new study shows that people who post on social media overnight are more likely to have poor mental health.
Researchers found that overnight users were also more likely to report symptoms of depression and anxiety.
experts That said, most studies on mental well-being and social media focus on frequency of social media use.
They wanted to assess whether time played a role.
As a result, they turned to Platform X, formerly known as Twitter, to measure overnight usage, as measured by the time people posted.
It was related to data from a long-term study tracking the health of people in the West England – The Children The 90s study, also known as the Avon Longitudinal Study of Children and Parents.
About 310 people were selected to be included in the study based on the timing of their tweets and when they answered questionnaires about their well-being.
In total the researchers examined 18,288 tweets, including retweets, that were posted between January 2008 and February 2023 – before the site changed its name to X.
The study found that people who tweeted on average from 11 pm to 5 am had significantly worse mental health than those who tweeted during the day.
The authors, led by academics from the University of Bristol, said overnight tweeting explained about 2% of the variation in mental health.
They also found an association between overnight tweeting with depression and anxiety, but these were not as strong.
The team highlighted how nighttime social media use can “displace sleep” as people stay awake to use it.
He said that posting and sending messages at night can lead to “cognitive stimulation”, and added that the blue light emitted from smartphones can “inhibit the production of the hormone melatonin”.
“Combined, these factors can delay sleep onset and impair sleep quality and quantity,” they write in the journal Scientific Reports.
“Better sleep-related outcomes are in turn associated with better mental health.”
Daniel Joinson, a doctoral researcher at the University of Bristol and lead author of the paper, said: “While social media is often treated like a monolith, its impact on mental health will depend on the exact behavior that users engage in and their experiences on these platforms.
“Our paper highlights the potential harms of a very specific behavior: posting content at night.
,Research Can help inform interventions or legislation like ours that aim to prevent harmful social media use while enabling beneficial behaviors or experiences.
Elon Musk acquired the company in autumn 2022 and rebranded it as X in summer 2023.