Even a weeklong break from social media improves mental health, study says

The idea of doing a "digital detox" – taking a set period of time away from smartphones, tablets and other screens in the name of mental health – has become popular in recent years.

It's not the daily minutes or hours of screen time that really matters, but the amount of time spent specifically on social media that increases symptoms of anxiety, depression and other mental health issues, a new study suggests.

MORE: The brain has 5 stages, but 'adulthood' doesn't begin until age 32, scientists say

The research, published Monday in JAMA Network Open, involved nearly 400 people ages 18 to 24 who used their phones as they normally would. Researchers installed an app on their devices to track information about social media use, as well as steps, sleep and other baseline measures.

After two weeks, participants filled out questionnaires about their levels of anxiety, depression, loneliness and insomnia.

About 80% of the people involved in the study then opted to take a one-week "detox" from social media, but not from screens entirely. Over that period, their use of social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X dropped from about 2 hours a day to about 30 minutes a day. People had an easier time dropping Facebook and X than they did weaning themselves off TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, the study found.

Mental health issues also decreased. Symptoms of depression declined by 24%, anxiety by 16% and insomnia by 14%.

"It usually takes eight to 12 weeks of intensive psychotherapy to see those kinds of reductions in mental health symptoms, so if you can get those with just one week of changing behavior, wow!" Mitchell Prinstein, chief of psychology strategy and integration for the American Psychological Association, told NPR's Morning Edition. He was not involved in the research.

The study lands within a larger debate about potential harms of smartphone use. Research has established links between social media use and depression, anxiety, loneliness and suicidal ideation. Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy even advocated in a New York Times Op-Ed for labels on social media platforms that warn about risks to adolescent mental health – primarily citing a 2019 study on the subject.

In the past couple of years, the School District of Philadelphia and other Philadelphia-area districts, instituted bans and "off and away" policies on smartphone use during the academic day.

Other researchers have said that findings about the negative association between social media and mental health are mixed and not as straightforward as they might seem.

And the new study had limitations. It did not have a control group for young people who continued with their usual social media habits as the other group did the detox. All the people engaged in the detox opted to do so.

"If we constantly tell people social media is bad for them and that taking a break is good, and then ask them to take a break and report how they feel after, this is what we see," Candice Odgers, a professor of psychological science in informatics at the University of California, who was not involved in the new study, told the New York Times.

But a social media detox could be an effective strategy alongside other mental health interventions, such as medication and therapy, said Dr. John Torous, one of the new study's co-authors and an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

"If you're struggling with a mental health condition, and you have treatment already, it's likely worth experimenting to see whether reducing social media helps you feel better," Torous told the Times.