The following is a press release issued by The Pride Study on Thursday, January 4, 2023:

Official Title

Active social media use and health indicators among sexual and gender minority adults

Community Title

Active Social Media Use and Health in the LGBTQIA+ Community

What Did We Do?

We looked at data from The PRIDE Study 2017 Annual Questionnaire around active social media use and health. To measure active social media use, we considered how participants rated their own use of social networking sites as active or passive and their frequency of commenting on friends’ posts or interacting with others. We examined whether people with more active social media use had better or worse health.

What Was New, Innovative, or Notable?

This was one of the first studies to measure how much LGBTQIA+ people use social media actively, not just how much time they spend on social media. Using social media actively might have different effects than just browsing.

What Did We Learn?

Individuals with more active social media use were more likely to feel depressed, smoke cigarettes, not sleep enough, and not get enough physical activity, compared to individuals with less active social media use.

What Does This Mean for Our Communities? 

More active social media usage may play a role in experiencing poor health. While social media usage may also positively affect our health in other ways, being mindful of our social media use may be good for our health.

What’s Next? 

We don’t know whether more active use of social media worsens health, or whether people with poorer health use social media more actively. We want to survey LGBTQIA+ individuals over a longer period of time to examine this relationship more closely.

Action Steps

See http://www.pridestudy.org/study for more information and to share this study with your friends and family.

If you are interested in conducting research related to LGBTQIA+ health, please learn more about collaborating with The PRIDE Study at http://pridestudy.org/collaborate.

Citation

Vogel EA, Flentje A, Lunn MR, Obedin-Maliver J, Capriotti MR, Ramo DE, Prochaska JJ. Active social media use and health indicators among sexual and gender minority adults. LGBT Health.  Vol 0 Ahead of Print. December 28, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1089/lgbt.2023.0170

View the full PDF at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/30w4w10n

Photo used courtesy of Gender Spectrum