Hasan Eeshan, Epping Gunnar, Lorenzo-Luaces Lorenzo, Bollen Johan, Trueblood Jennifer Sue
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
Cognitive Science Program, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
PNAS Nexus. 2025 Mar 4;4(3):pgaf068. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf068. eCollection 2025 Mar.
Depression is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. Individuals with depression often experience unrealistic and overly negative thoughts, i.e. cognitive distortions, that cause maladaptive behaviors and feelings. Now that a majority of the US population uses social media platforms, concerns have been raised that they may serve as a vector for the spread of distorted ideas and thinking amid a global mental health epidemic. Here, we study how individuals ( ) interact with distorted content on social media platforms using a simulated environment similar to Twitter (now X). We find that individuals with higher depression symptoms tend to prefer distorted content more than those with fewer symptoms. However, a simple one-shot intervention can teach individuals to recognize and drastically reduce interactions with distorted content across the entire depression scale. This suggests that distorted thinking on social media may disproportionally affect individuals with depression, but simple awareness training can mitigate this effect. Our findings have important implicasstions for understanding the role of social media in propagating distorted thinking and potential paths to reduce the societal cost of mental health disorders.
抑郁症是全球致残的主要原因之一。患有抑郁症的人经常会经历不切实际且过度消极的想法，即认知扭曲，这些认知扭曲会导致适应不良的行为和情绪。鉴于美国大多数人口都使用社交媒体平台，人们担心在全球心理健康流行的情况下，这些平台可能会成为扭曲观念和思维传播的载体。在此，我们使用类似于推特（现为X）的模拟环境，研究个体如何与社交媒体平台上的扭曲内容进行互动。我们发现，抑郁症状较重的个体比症状较轻的个体更倾向于偏好扭曲内容。然而，一种简单的一次性干预可以教会个体识别并大幅减少在整个抑郁程度范围内与扭曲内容的互动。这表明社交媒体上的扭曲思维可能会对抑郁症患者产生不成比例的影响，但简单的认知训练可以减轻这种影响。我们的研究结果对于理解社交媒体在传播扭曲思维中的作用以及降低心理健康障碍社会成本的潜在途径具有重要意义。
