University of California: A survey found that people who frequently use social networks have a 12% lower overall risk of death

Recently, we often see heated discussions on the Internet on topics such as "The circle of friends has no traces of life" and "Changes after closing the circle of friends for a year".

Some netizens feel that people are less and less interested in posting on WeChat Moments, or that they feel more relaxed after closing the Moments.

Some netizens also feel that they would rather post updates on other social platforms than on WeChat Moments because they don’t want their relatives and friends to see them.

Is posting on Moments really a burden in our lives as netizens think?

01. The risk of death for those who love posting on WeChat Moments drops by 12%

In fact, more than 100 years ago, French sociologist Emile Durkheim studied the suicide rate in Europe in his book "Suicide" and found that the lack of social connections was the reason for the high suicide rate.

A meta-study summarizing a total of 1,187 studies published between 1994 and 2021, with more than 145.8 million participants, found that compared with people with sufficient social life and social support, the lack of these factors will lead to an 11% to 53% higher risk of death and a 23% higher risk of illness, and some are even 6 times higher.

Among them, postpartum depression in women is closely related to whether they have social support.

Let's look at a more specific survey study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2016. Researchers from the University of California, San Diego studied the online social activities of 12 million Facebook users and obtained some interesting conclusions.

First, people who frequently use social networks have a 12% lower overall risk of death , and also a lower risk of death from specific diseases, such as cancer, coronary heart disease, drug abuse, and suicide. In particular, those who frequently receive friend requests have the lowest risk of death.

This shows that social connections and support have a positive impact on longevity, because frequently initiating friend requests generally means that one lacks social support and wants to seek friendship, while receiving friend requests generally means that others like oneself, and these people tend to have relatively sufficient social support.

Overall mortality risk of Facebook users, Image source: Reference [1]

Second, compared to people who often post text status but not photos, people who often post photos but not text status have a 30% lower risk of death than the average level , and their risk of death from specific diseases is also significantly reduced.

Due to the lack of analysis of specific photos and text content, the reason cannot be confirmed for the time being, but it is speculated that it may be that frequently posting photos rather than just pure text often reflects a rich social life, while pure text status without photos is some personal feelings, thoughts, etc., which is related to the individual rather than social.

02. Why does social support make people live longer?

From a psychological perspective, in addition to the pleasure that social activities bring, the social support they provide is also extremely important.

According to the stress buffering hypothesis, social support is a protective factor in coping with stress. Stress involves three aspects:

1. There is a real or artificial threat to the individual's physical or psychological health;

2. It will continuously activate the brain's defense systems, such as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the sympathetic-adrenal-medullary (SMA) axis;

3. The individual's cognitive assessment of the stimulus, whether it is threatening, and the effectiveness of the defensive response.

Neurobiological research shows that long-term activation of the brain's defense system caused by stress can lead to cardiovascular and autonomic nervous system imbalance, high sympathetic nerve tension and low parasympathetic nerve tension, thereby increasing the risk of disease and death.

Psychologist Eisenberg conducted a study in 2011 in which subjects were exposed to moderate and high levels of painful heat stimulation while viewing photos of their partners, strangers, and objects.

The results showed that the pain was significantly reduced when watching the partner's photo, and the activation of the pain-related brain areas (dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus and anterior insula) decreased, while the activity of the brain area related to safety signals (ventromedial prefrontal cortex) increased. This shows that social support can provide people with a sense of security and improve their ability to cope with stress.

03. Loneliness: The black dog that erodes mental health

I don’t know when it started, but posting on WeChat Moments seems to have become a burden. I want to post something to complain, but then I delete it because I’m afraid my family will worry or my friends won’t understand. Slowly, my social media accounts are devoid of traces of life. With no one to confide in, loneliness is creeping in.

Psychologist Signa found in the "Loneliness and the Workplace: 2020 U.S. Report" that 61% of Americans feel moderate or above levels of loneliness, 38% believe they have no close relationships, and 34% believe they are not respected by others.

At the end of the report, Signer concluded that loneliness is reaching epidemic proportions in today's society and is expected to increase further in the coming decades.

In our society, there are many forms of love: family love, friendship, romance, and even care from strangers. These are called the emotional components of social support by psychologists. They make us believe that we are loved, cared for, respected and valued. They are unique and precious things in our human society.

Posting on WeChat Moments is not the only way for us to connect with our friends and family, but these connections may very well be our only support in some difficult situations, and they become a handle to resist the emotional vortex when we feel anxious or depressed.

There is a good saying: "If you don't have that many viewers, you might as well live boldly." Some desires do need to be restrained, but the desire to share does not.

References:

[1] Hobbs, WR, Burke, M., Christakis, NA, & ​​Fowler, JH (2016). Online social integration is associated with reduced mortality risk. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(46), 12980-12984.

[2] Vila, J. (2021). Social support and longevity: meta-analysis-based evidence and psychobiological mechanisms. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 717164.

[3] Cigna (2020). Loneliness and the Workplace: 2020 US Report.

[4] Eisenberger, NI, Moieni, M., Inagaki, TK, Muscatell, KA, & Irwin, MR (2017). In sickness and in health: the co-regulation of inflammation and social behavior. Neuropsychopharmacology, 42(1), 242-253.

From Science Popularization China