Social media

Posted on Mental health, Social media

How is TikTok affecting our mental health? It’s complicated, a new U of M study shows.

TikTok - YouTube

With the rise of TikTok, many people have wondered about its potential impacts on society, in particular surrounding mental health. According to a first-of-its-kind study from University of Minnesota Twin Cities computer science researchers, the social media platform and its unique algorithm can serve as both a haven and a hindrance for users struggling with their mental state. 

The researchers’ study will be published in the proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. They will be presenting their research at the upcoming conference happening April 23-28.

Through interviews with TikTok users, the University of Minnesota team found that the platform provided many people with a sense of self-discovery and community they were unable to find on other social media. However, the researchers said, the TikTok algorithm also displayed a worrying tendency to repeatedly expose users to content that could be harmful to their mental health.

“TikTok is misunderstood by people who don’t use the platform,” explained Stevie Chancellor, senior author of the paper and an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota Department of Computer Science & Engineering. “They think of it as the dance platform or the place where everybody gets an ADHD diagnosis. Our research shows that TikTok helps people find community and mental health information. But, people should also be mindful of its algorithm, how it works, and when the system is providing them things that are harmful to their wellbeing.”

TikTok is different from other social media platforms in that it is primarily run by a recommender system algorithm that displays videos it thinks you will like on your “For You Page” feed, as opposed to mostly showing posts from accounts you follow. While this can be great for showing you more content that you like, it can also lead to a rabbit hole of negative content that’s nearly impossible to escape from, the researchers said. 

“TikTok is a huge platform for mental health content,” said Ashlee Milton, first author of the paper and a University of Minnesota computer science and engineering Ph.D. student. “People tend to gravitate toward social media to find information and other people who are going through similar situations. A lot of our participants talked about how helpful this mental health information was. But at some point, because of the way the feed works, it’s just going to keep giving you more and more of the same content. And that’s when it can go from being helpful to being distressing and triggering.”

The researchers found that when users get into harmful spirals of negative content, there often is no escape. The TikTok interface includes a “Not interested” button, but the study participants said it didn’t make any difference in the content that appeared in their feeds. 

The research participants also expressed that it’s difficult to discern when TikTok creators are posting emotional or intense mental health content genuinely, or if they’re just “chasing clout” to gain more followers and likes. Many participants were forced to take breaks or quit using the platform entirely because of the stress it caused.

According to the University of Minnesota researchers, all of this doesn’t mean TikTok is evil. But, they said, it is useful information to keep in mind when using the platform, especially for mental health purposes.

“One of our participants jokingly referred to the For You page as a ‘dopamine slot machine,’” Milton said. “They talked about how they would keep scrolling just so that they could get to a good post because they didn’t want to end on a bad post. It’s important to be able to recognize what is happening and say, ‘Okay, let’s not do that.’”

This study is the first in a series of papers Chancellor and Milton plan on writing about social media, TikTok, and mental health.

“Ashlee and I are interested in how platforms may promote harmful behaviors to a person so that eventually, we can design strategies to mitigate those bad outcomes,” Chancellor said. “The first step in this process is interviewing people to make sure we understand their experiences on TikTok. We need insights from people before we as computer scientists go in and design to fix this problem.”

Posted on A to Z of Medical Conditions, Social media

Health apps could help older adults with anything from sleep to diabetes, but most don’t use them

Key findings about health app use by older adults


The percentage of adults age 50-80 who said they use a mobile app for a specific health-related purpose. Data from the National Poll on Healthy Aging from the University of Michigan CREDIT University of Michigan

Mobile apps make it possible to track everything from exercise and calories to blood pressure and blood sugar, and use the information to stay on target with health goals or managing a chronic condition.

But a new poll shows that most people over age 50 aren’t using such apps – and that those who might get the most help out of them are less likely to actually use them.    

Less than half (44%) of people age 50 to 80 have ever used a health-related app on their smartphone, wearable device or tablet, according to the new findings from the National Poll on Healthy Aging.

Those who say they are in poor health, and those with lower incomes or levels of education, were far less likely to have ever used such apps. Half of those who haven’t ever used a health app, or have stopped using them, said they are not interested in using them.

The percentage of older adults who currently use at least one app is even smaller, at 28%. One-third of this group uses an app to track exercise, while smaller percentages use apps to track sleep, weight, nutrition, blood pressure, to guide meditation, or to manage mental health and stress. One-quarter of current users have shared information from their apps with their health care providers.

And among older adults who have diabetes, just 28% use an app on their device to log their blood sugar levels and 14% use an app to log their medications. But nearly half of older people with diabetes say they would be interested in using an app in both of these ways.  

The poll is based at the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and supported by AARP and Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center.

“Now that most older adults have at least one mobile device, health-related apps can provide an opportunity to support their health-related behaviors, manage their conditions and improve health outcomes,” said Pearl Lee, M.D., M.S., a geriatrician at Michigan Medicine who worked on the poll report.

Lee and co-authors James Aikens, Ph.D., and Caroline Richardson, M.D., both of the U-M Department of Family Medicine, say the potential is especially important for older adults with diabetes.

The poll also included questions about continuous glucose monitors, which people with diabetes can wear on their skin to monitor their blood sugar over the long term. Such monitors can connect with mobile devices to feed readings into an app.

Only 11% of the poll respondents who have Type 2 diabetes said they currently use a CGM, though another 68% had heard of such devices and over half of them said they would potentially be interested in using one.

“AARP’s research has found a sharp increase in older adults purchasing and using technology during the pandemic, and many are interested in using technology to track health measures,” said Indira Venkat, Vice President, Consumer Insights at AARP. “With more people 50+ owning and using technology, we may start to see an increase in older adults using apps to monitor their health.”

Disparities in app use

Recent data show that 83% of people age 50 to 64, and 61% of people over age 65, own a smartphone, and just under half of people in each age group own a tablet device. That’s up from 34% of 50-64-year olds and 13% of those over 65 having a smartphone a decade ago, and even lower percentages having tablets at that time.

Despite this rise, the poll highlights disparities in the use of mobile health apps by income and education level, as well as age. It also shows that lack of awareness, or mistrust of the security of health apps may be holding many older adults back.

Poll director Preeti Malani, M.D., an infectious disease physician with training in geriatrics at Michigan Medicine, notes that older adults with incomes over $100,000 were nearly three times more likely than those with incomes under $30,000 to use health apps, at 43% vs. 15%. Those with college degrees were more than twice as likely to use health apps as those who had not completed high school.

“People who describe  their health as fair or poor – the people who might be most in need of the kind of tracking, support and information a good health app can give – were significantly less likely to use such apps than those who say they’re in excellent, very good or good health,” Malani notes. “Health providers should consider discussing the use of health apps with their patients, because one-third said they had never thought about using one.”

The poll report is based on findings from a nationally representative survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for IHPI, and administered online and via phone in August 2021 among 2,110 older adults age 50–80. The sample was subsequently weighted to reflect the U.S. population. Read past National Poll on Healthy Aging reports and about the poll methodology. 

Posted on Mental health, Social media

Apps On Your Phone Can Improve Caregiver Mental Health

Does socioeconomic status explain why Black people with MS have more disability?

Those who care for older adults suffering with memory loss and other cognitive impairments can significantly reduce their depression, stress, and anxiety by focusing on what is going on at the moment and engaging in mindfulness therapy, according to new Rutgers research.

The study, published in Aging & Mental Health, examined the feasibility, acceptability, and usefulness of Mindfulness Coach, a mobile application designed to teach people how to practice mindfulness. 

“Caregiving can be extremely stressful and time consuming. Caregivers don’t always have time to seek out the services that they may need, like therapy,” said Elissa Kozlov, instructor in the Department of Health Behavior, Society, and Policy at the Rutgers School of Public Health. “However, our study has indicated that mHealth strategies, such as the Mindfulness Coach app, fits well into caregivers’ busy lives and has the potential to improve their mental health and wellbeing.”

Unpaid caregivers, who are often relatives and friends, are the ones who usually provide the largest portion of support to those who require medical assistance. Since this care if often for a prolonged period, they can experience a higher level of stress and anxiety.

Mindfulness therapy, the technique behind the Mindfulness Coach App, provides stress and anxiety management through psychoeducation, guided meditation, and mindfulness exercises to reduce symptoms of stress and depression. It was created by a team at the National Center for PTSD Research at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The researchers, interested in determining whether mindfulness therapy would have comparable positive implications on caregivers of older adults with cognitive impairments, studied a sample of family caregivers over eight weeks to assess anxiety and depression levels, caregiver burden, application user experience and satisfaction, and total application usage time.

They found that as caregivers engaged more with the app, symptoms of anxiety, stress, depression, and caregiver burden decreased.

“The mobile application provides patient centered treatments to individuals with increased responsibilities and stressors,” adds Paul Duberstein, chair and professor in the Department of Health Behavior, Society, and Policy at the school. “The Mindfulness Coach application is a user friendly, feasible option for this population of caregivers and has yielded positive results.”

The results of this study suggest mobile health interventions can positively impact future mental health treatment options for patients through scalability and accessibility.

Study co-authors include faculty from other collaborating institutions and research centers.

Posted on Diabetes, Social media

Diabetes patients use of mobile health app found to improve health outcomes, lower medical costs

Apps for Autism
Apps for mHealth


Emerging smart mobile health (or mHealth) technologies are changing the way patients track information related to diagnosed conditions. A new study examined the health and economic impacts of mHealth technologies on the outcomes of diabetes patients in Asia. The study concluded that compared to patients who did not use mHealth applications, patients who used the apps had better health outcomes and were able to regulate their health behavior more effectively. They also had fewer hospital visits and lower medical costs.

The study was conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and New York University (NYU). It has been accepted into publication and is forthcoming in MIS Quarterly, a publication of the Management Information Systems Research Center.

“Given the importance of health behaviors to well-being, health outcomes, and disease processes, mHealth technologies offer significant potential to facilitate patients’ lifestyle and behavior modification through patient education, improved autonomous self-regulation, and perceived competence,” explains Beibei Li, professor of information systems and management at CMU’s Heinz College, who coauthored the study.

The relatively new area of mHealth includes mobile computing, medical sensor, and communications technologies used for health care services (e.g., managing chronic diseases). mHealth applications can operate on smart phones, tablets, sensors, and cloud-based computing systems, all of which collect health data on individuals. The global mHealth market was estimated to have reached $49 billion by the end of 2020. Yet few studies have assessed the technology’s effectiveness in changing patients’ behaviors and outcomes.

In this study, researchers sought to determine how mHealth applications persuade individuals to modify their behavior to comply with recommended approaches to obtain certain health goals. The researchers measured compliance by looking at detailed patient activities (e.g., daily walking steps, exercise time, sleeping pattern, food intake) as measured by the app, as well as general health outcomes, hospital visits, and medical expenses.

The researchers partnered with a top mHealth firm that provides one of the largest mobile health platforms in Asia specializing in diabetes care. The study randomly assigned 1,070 adult patients to different groups for three months: Some patients used the mHealth app, some did not, and some used a web-based version of the app. Among the patients in the group that used the mHealth app, some received personalized text message reminders, while others received non-personalized text messages. Researchers interviewed all participants before the study began and five months after it ended. Among the questions asked were those about demographics, medication and medical history, blood glucose and hemoglobin levels, frequency of hospital visits, and medical costs.

The study found that patients who used the mHealth app reduced their blood glucose and hemoglobin levels, even after controlling for individual-level fixed effects. Patients who used the app also exercised more, slept more, and ate healthier food. And they had fewer hospital visits and lower medical expenses.

The authors suggest that patients’ adoption of and use of the mHealth app was associated with significant behavioral modifications toward a healthier diet and lifestyle. In this way, users became more autonomously self-regulated with their health behavior, and this increasing intrinsic motivation helped them become more engaged, persistent, and stable in their behavior, which led to improved health outcomes. The mHealth platform also facilitated an increased usage of telemedicine, which in turn led to reduced hospital visits and medical expenses for the patients.

The study also found that the mHealth platform was more effective in improving patients’ health outcomes than a web-based (PC) version of the same app. And non-personalized text messages tended to be more effective in changing patients’ behavior than personalized messages, possibly because personalized messages can be viewed as intrusive, coercive, and annoying.

Among the study’s limitations, the authors note that this study focused mainly on participants with Type II diabetes which, different from Type I diabetes or Gestational diabetes, is directly tied to dietary or lifestyle self-management. Hence, the research is not necessarily applicable to patients with other types of diabetes.

“Our findings provide important insights on the design of mHealth apps through a better understanding of patients’ health behavior and interactions with the platform,” suggests Anindya Ghose, professor of business at NYU’s Stern School of Business, who coauthored the study. “Such knowledge can be very valuable for health care mobile platform designers as well as policymakers to improve the design of smart and connected health infrastructures through sustained usage of the emerging technologies.”

Posted on Social media

The Impact of Social Media on Children

Healthcare and Social Media
Children and Social Media

Many UK adults rely on social media for a variety of reasons, but the audience of these platforms has shifted notably in recent years. There is an increasing number of youngsters engaging with some form of social app. While there are both positive and negative factors rooted in the idea of children on social media, it’s usually up to a parent to make the call on how and if their children should use social media. As a result, it has become a divisive topic. Let’s take a look at the perspective from both sides and evaluate whether or not there is a way to strike a balance for our ever-social children!

Social media, screen time and health concerns

One of the biggest issues with social media is the amount of time that it involves spent focusing on a screen. Many users have become aware of the impact that this can have on health. Known as ‘computer vision syndrome’, prolonged screen exposure can cause eye strain, headaches, and blurred vision. While these symptoms can be easily treated and managed, it’s important to encourage children to take regular breaks from their devices — but distracting a child’s inquisitive eyes from the screen can be a challenge sometimes. Instead of spending rainy weekends indoors, dig our your kids waterproofs and encourage them to get out and explore nature.

As these devices are more accessible than ever before, kids are spending more time focused on a screen with little downtime. Studies have found evidence to support the claim that obesity is in fact linked to excessive screen time, through both inactivity and poor dietary . The evidence suggests that increased screen time could even increase the likelihood of obesity in later life. In 2017/2018, around 34.3% of children aged between 10 and 11 were overweight. As we see the continual surge in the popularity of social networks, this figure is only expected to grow.

Other health related impacts that are linked to excessive screen time include difficulty sleeping, as the light which is emitted from many of our essential digital devices can interfere with the brain’s sleep cycle, triggering insomnia. 

Networking skills from a young age

It’s not all bad though. The concept of social media is to bring people together and it has evolved the way we stay in touch with both people we care about and issues in the wider world. For children, there are benefits of being a part of such networks, as it can have a positive impact in teaching them how to interact with their peers. Sites such as Kidzworld, GromSocial, and Yoursphere are all leading examples of how social media can be used to generating a useful community for kids to enjoy themselves.

The younger generation are also growing up in a highly digitised climate, so exposure to social media can actually equip them with the necessary skills for the world that they will inherit. Digital technology has arisen across all areas of life at an alarming rate, and our kids will need to be prepared for an ever-advancing world.

Relationships — a positive and negative influence

In a world before widespread access to social media, developing relationships was a process reserved for real life. However, as these networks began to emerge, they provided a new way to create new connections and relationships. Observations into children’s behaviour development as a result of social media has revealed a potential increase in a child’s ability to be empathetic. It has also highlighted an improved focus on solidifying new relationships.

Youngsters are growing up in a world where we stay in touch with friends and family by ‘liking’ and commenting on updates. However, this can lead to over-use and even a reliance on these platforms for maintaining such relationships. This can affect a child’s perception of what a real human relationship is. Contrarily, technology can be used to teach empathy, and some of the content that a child sees online can help to teach compassion to a younger audience.

The impact of social media on children can certainly be managed, and as we have explored, the technology can actually be useful for developing a wider understanding of the world and communication.

Sources:

https://www.verywellfamily.com/the-negative-effects-of-too-much-screen-time-1094877

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5769928/

https://www.google.com/search?q=impacts+of+prolonged+screen+time&rlz=1C1LENP_enGB841GB841&oq=impacts+of+prolonged+screen+time&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.5055j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/features-and-news/half-of-people-get-news-from-social-media