Abstract
Aim of the studyAdolescents are increasingly active in social media: 72% use Instagram while as many as a quarter suffer from at least one mental disorder, Internet users among them. A number of studies confirming the mutual influence of social media and mental health have been conducted but there is a shortage of data on the Internet activity of people suffering from mental disorders. This study aims at extending the existing knowledge by analyzing Instagram accounts of adolescent psychiatric in-patients.Subject or material and methodsWe analyzed the contents of Instagram accounts, links to 36 of which were hidden in graffiti drawn by patients on the walls of an inpatient adolescent psychiatric ward. After excluding inactive and nonexistent accounts, 21 addresses were analyzed with respect to the number and content of published posts and comments left under them.Results90% of the accounts belonged to girls. 52% revealed the owner’s identity. The posts were mainly depressive, which correlated with the psychopathology of the patients. The comments differed in number and in character depending on the content of the post: replies to posts related to body image were mainly supportive, while comments on posts related to self-harm mainly expressed sympathy.DiscussionMost of the analyzed Instagram posts are related to the typical psychopathology of the patients hospitalized on our ward. In addition, it is also similar to negative effects that social media may have on mental health.ConclusionsThe association found in the study show that conducting further research on social media use by psychiatric patients may be clinically important.
Highlights
In an era when the Internet is universally accessible and social media are unwaveringly popular, their influence on the mental health of an individual is the focus of growing attention
The association found in the study show that conducting further research on social media use by psychiatric patients may be clinically important
We found 36 URLs of Instagram pages at the walls of the In-patient Unit. 15 profiles which did not exist anymore or were inactive were excluded from the analysis
Summary
In an era when the Internet is universally accessible and social media are unwaveringly popular, their influence on the mental health of an individual is the focus of growing attention. One of social networking services, is a platform based on sharing photos and image content with other users with an average of 95 million posts published daily [2]. It is the second most popular, after Youtube, social networking service among teenagers – in the conducted study 72% of adolescents confirmed using it [2]. Research shows both the negative influence of Internet use on the mental and physical health and the type of online activity of people with mental problems. Many studies have shown among others increased incidence of depressive symptoms in people using social networking services [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16]
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