The Relationship Between Problematic Social Media Use and Depression: A Meta-Analysis Study

In the digital age, people interact face-to-face and through social media tools such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The transformation of social media into problematic use has become a global concern. Studies show that problematic social media use (PSMU) is associated with many sociological, psychological, and physiological problems. One of the factors associated with PSMU is depression. This meta-analysis study aimed to systematically synthesize the relationship between PSMU and depression through existing research. This study was conducted on the Turkish population, and as a result of a screening of 10 databases, 38 studies with a total of 14,935 participants were found. The findings of the random effects meta-analysis showed that there was a positive and small association between PSMU and depression (r = 0.321 [0.283, 0.358], p < .05). The corrected effect size according to the PET/PEESE method similarly supports the idea of a small effect between PMSU and depression (r = 0.277 [0.183, 0.372], p < .05). The results of moderator analyses show that there is heterogeneity by type of publication, with theses reporting larger effect sizes than articles. Type of publication, sample group, data collection method, type of coefficient, year of publication, gender ratio, and sample size variables were not found to be significant sources of heterogeneity. These results suggest the importance of focusing on more specific variables in causal and intervention-prevention research to reveal real effects when examining the relationship between PSMU and depression in the future.