Facebook would be nothing without its Ivy League roots. But now a new Ivy League study could mean big trouble for Facebook, along with Instagram and Snapchat for that matter.
That’s because this is the first study to show a “clear causal link” between using these three sites and being lonely and depressed.
Other studies have certainly found that heavy users of Facebook and other social media sites suffered mental health issues.
But that was about correlation, not causation. Those studies mostly found that it could simply be that people who are depressed and lonely to begin with wind up using Facebook and similar sites more often–as opposed to the sites themselves causing the issues.
This new study from the psychology department at the University of Pennsylvania, however, says it’s made the crucial link.