Irritability and Social Media Use in US Adults

Efforts to understand the complex association between social media use and mental health have focused on depression, with little investigation of other forms of negative affect, such as irritability and anxiety.

To characterize the association between self-reported use of individual social media platforms and irritability among US adults.

This survey study analyzed data from 2 waves of the COVID States Project, a nonprobability web-based survey conducted between November 2, 2023, and January 8, 2024, and applied multiple linear regression models to estimate associations with irritability. Survey respondents were aged 18 years and older.

Self-reported social media use.

The primary outcome was score on the Brief Irritability Test (range, 5-30), with higher scores indicating greater irritability.

Across the 2 survey waves, there were 42 597 unique participants, with mean (SD) age 46.0 (17.0) years; 24 919 (58.5%) identified as women, 17 222 (40.4%) as men, and 456 (1.1%) as nonbinary. In the full sample, 1216 (2.9%) identified as Asian American, 5939 (13.9%) as Black, 5322 (12.5%) as Hispanic, 624 (1.5%) as Native American, 515 (1.2%) as Pacific Islander, 28 354 (66.6%) as White, and 627 (1.5%) as other (ie, selecting the other option prompted the opportunity to provide a free-text self-description). In total, 33 325 (78.2%) of the survey respondents reported daily use of at least 1 social media platform, including 6037 (14.2%) using once a day, 16 678 (39.2%) using multiple times a day, and 10 610 (24.9%) using most of the day. Frequent use of social media was associated with significantly greater irritability in univariate regression models (for more than once a day vs never, 1.43 points [95% CI, 1.22-1.63 points]; for most of the day vs never, 3.37 points [95% CI, 3.15-3.60 points]) and adjusted models (for more than once a day, 0.38 points [95% CI, 0.18-0.58 points]; for most of the day, 1.55 points [95% CI, 1.32-1.78 points]). These associations persisted after incorporating measures of political engagement.

In this survey study of 42 597 US adults, irritability represented another correlate of social media use that merits further characterization, in light of known associations with depression and suicidality.