Genetic analysis upends narrative linking social media use to lower wellbeing

A new study provides evidence that genetics may shape how people use social media—and how this use relates to their mental health. Published in Behavioral Genetics, the research suggests that the small associations often reported between social media use and either psychological wellbeing may not be driven entirely by social media itself. Instead, these links appear to be partly explained by shared genetic factors that influence both psychological wellbeing and social media behavior.

“Social media is now nearly universal, with about 60% of the world’s population using at least one platform. At the same time, there’s an ongoing debate about whether it supports or harms wellbeing,” said study author Selim Sametoglu (@selimsametoglu), a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.

“Most research so far has been based on simple correlations, often using cross-sectional data, which doesn’t tell us much about causality. In addition, associations between wellbeing and social media use are typically very small. Yet, public discussions frequently make strong claims, especially about adolescents.”

“We wanted to move beyond this by investigating the source of the small relations between social media use and wellbeing, using genetically informative data from the Netherlands Twin Register. This allowed us to test whether links between social media use and wellbeing—including symptoms of depression and anxiety—might partly reflect shared genetic influences. By looking across multiple platforms and a wide range of wellbeing indicators, we aimed to provide a more nuanced picture than the simple idea that social media is either ‘good’ or ‘bad.'”

The study used data from the Netherlands Twin Register, focusing on 6,492 individuals. The sample included 3,369 monozygotic (identical) twins and 3,123 dizygotic (fraternal) twins. Participants ranged in age from 16 to 89, with an average age of 35.

Wellbeing was assessed using both hedonic and eudaimonic measures. Hedonic wellbeing reflects life satisfaction and happiness, while eudaimonic wellbeing refers to a deeper sense of purpose, engagement, and positive functioning. To capture mental illbeing, participants also completed a validated scale of anxious-depressive symptoms.

Social media use was measured in three ways: how much time participants spent daily on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and LinkedIn; how frequently they posted; and how many social media accounts they maintained. These different measures allowed the researchers to distinguish between the quantity and type of engagement.

Using a classical twin design, the researchers examined how much of the variation in each trait could be attributed to genetic factors, shared environmental factors, or unique environmental factors. They then looked at whether correlations between wellbeing or anxiety symptoms and social media use were also influenced by genetic overlap.

The results confirmed what prior meta-analyses have suggested: the associations between social media use and both wellbeing and anxious-depressive symptoms were statistically significant in some cases but consistently small. The correlations ranged from −0.09 to 0.10. For example, people who posted more frequently on social media tended to report slightly lower levels of life satisfaction, but the effect was modest.

More notable was what explained these small associations. The researchers found that most of the statistically significant correlations were due to shared genetic factors. This suggests that certain genetic traits might predispose individuals both to specific patterns of social media use and to differences in psychological wellbeing.

The study also showed that social media use itself is partly heritable. Time spent on social media had a heritability estimate of 72%, posting frequency was 54% heritable, and the number of social media accounts showed 32% heritability. The remaining variation was explained by individual environmental differences that were not shared between twins.

“Overall, the associations between wellbeing and social media use were small or nonexistent,” Sametoglu told PsyPost. “Social media use itself was heritable, with genetic influences explaining up to 72% of the variation in daily time spent online. The small but statistically significant associations we did find seemed to be explained by overlapping genetic factors that influence both social media use and wellbeing. In other words, the effects of social media are not as sweeping as often portrayed in public debates. Instead, they appear modest, nuanced, and partly shaped by individual differences in genetics.”

Interestingly, different aspects of social media use showed different patterns of genetic influence. Time spent and posting frequency were highly genetically correlated with one another, but had weaker overlap with the number of accounts, suggesting that these behaviors may be driven by distinct psychological or biological traits.

One somewhat surprising finding was that the wellbeing measure known as “flourishing,” which captures purpose and engagement in life, was positively associated with both time spent on social media and the number of social media accounts. In contrast, other wellbeing indicators such as life satisfaction and subjective happiness were slightly negatively correlated with time spent online or posting frequency.

“This suggests that while slightly lower wellbeing levels often go hand in hand with greater social media use, higher flourishing can also be linked to greater use,” Sametoglu explained. “It reinforces the idea that social media has both positive and negative sides. That said, these correlations were very small and should be interpreted with care.”

“People with higher wellbeing seemed to use more platforms and spend more time online, but more passively—browsing rather than posting. In contrast, those with lower wellbeing tended to post more frequently on fewer platforms. These patterns align with previous findings on oversharing and reduced wellbeing, but they need to be replicated.”

As with all research, there are some limitations. The cross-sectional design means the researchers cannot determine the direction of causality. “We can’t say whether wellbeing influences social media use, the other way around, or whether the relationship goes both ways,” Sametoglu noted. “What we can say is that shared genetic factors seem to play a role in the associations.”

“Another limitation is that our sample was drawn from the Netherlands, where social media participation is considerably higher than the global average. Moreover, heritability estimates can vary across cultural contexts, as demonstrated in previous research on traits such as personality. Future studies should therefore aim to replicate these findings in more diverse populations.”

Taken together, the findings suggest that the relationship between social media and psychological wellbeing is far more nuanced than often portrayed in public debates. Rather than being a straightforward cause of mental health problems, social media use appears to be influenced by individual genetic differences that also shape wellbeing and mental health traits.

This does not mean that social media has no effect. But it suggests that population-level interventions may have limited impact unless they account for individual variability. People with different genetic backgrounds may respond to the same digital environments in different ways. The researchers suggest that future work should focus on understanding these individual pathways and tailoring interventions accordingly.

“I’m interested in continuing to explore how individuals engage with new technologies and the extent to which genetic and environmental factors influence this engagement,” Sametoglu said. “Just like with the printing press, the telephone, or television, social media has triggered moral panic. But our findings show that its links with wellbeing and mental health are small and nuanced at the population level—not the sweeping negative picture we often hear.”

The study, “The Association Between Frequency of Social Media Use, Wellbeing, and Depressive Symptoms: Disentangling Genetic and Environmental Factors,” was authored by Selim Sametoğlu, Dirk H. M. Pelt, and Meike Bartels.