Is YouTube Making You Feel Lonely?

YouTube can have an impact on mental health and can lead to a sense of loneliness.

Highlights:

Frequent YouTube users may experience increased levels of loneliness, anxiety, and depression, particularly those under the age of 29 years old who often watch content about other people's lives
The emergence of parasocial ties between content creators and followers can be a cause for concern, as online relationships may exacerbate issues for those with social anxiety who do not engage in face-to-face interactions
There is a need for monitoring and intervention through artificial intelligence, particularly for vulnerable children and adolescents who engage in high-frequency use of YouTube

Frequent YouTube users experience increased degrees of loneliness, anxiety, and depression, according to the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention (AISRAP) ().

Dr. Luke Balcombe and Emeritus Professor Diego De Leo of Griffith University's School of Applied Psychology and AISRAP investigated the positive and negative effects of the world's most popular streaming platform on mental health.

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‘A significant increase in behaviors such as maintaining parasocial relationships could be the main culprit behind the loneliness generated due to YouTube.’

Individuals under the age of 29 years old who often watched content about other people's lives were shown to be the most negatively affected.

The emergence of parasocial ties between content creators and followers may be cause for concern, according to lead author Dr. Luke Balcombe, although some neutral or positive cases of creators forming deeper relationships with their followers have also occurred.

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"These online ‘relationships’ can fill a gap for people who, for example, have social anxiety; however, they can exacerbate their issues when they don't engage in face-to-face interactions, which are especially important in the developmental years," he said.

"We recommend individuals limit their time on YouTube and seek out other forms of social interaction to combat loneliness and promote positive mental health."

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According to Dr. Balcombe, the amount of time spent on YouTube is frequently a source of concern for parents who struggle to control their children's usage of the platform for educational or other purposes.

For the purposes of the study, YouTube consumption of more than two hours per day was classified as high-frequency usage, while consumption of more than five hours per day was classified as saturation use ().

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The study also concluded that more should be done to prevent suicide-related content from being promoted to users via algorithms for suggested watching.

While people should not be able to search for these topics and be exposed to methods, the YouTube algorithm does push recommendations or suggestions based on prior searches, which can drive users farther down a troubling 'rabbit hole'.

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Users can report this type of stuff, but it may not be reported all of the time, or it may be present for a few days or weeks, and with the sheer volume of information coming through, it's nearly impossible for YouTube's algorithms to stop it all.

If a piece of content is recognized as potentially containing suicidal or self-harm content, YouTube issues a warning and asks the user if they want to watch the video ().

Vulnerability of Children and Adolescents can be a Worrying Factor

"With vulnerable children and adolescents who engage in high-frequency use, there could be value in monitoring and intervention through artificial intelligence," Dr. Balcombe said.

"We’ve explored human-computer interaction issues and proposed a concept for an independent YouTube algorithmic recommendation system that will steer users towards verified positive mental health content or promotions.

"YouTube is increasingly used for mental health purposes, mainly for information seeking or sharing, and many digital mental health approaches are being tried with varying levels of merit, but with over 10,000 mental health apps currently available, it can be really overwhelming knowing which ones to use, or even which ones to recommend from a practitioner's point of view.

"There is a gap for verified mental health or suicide tools based on a mix of AI-based machine learning, risk modeling, and suitably qualified human decisions, but by getting mental health and suicide experts together to verify information from AI, digital mental health interventions could be a very promising solution to support increasing unmet mental health needs."

References:

The Impact of YouTube on Loneliness and Mental Health - (https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9709/10/2/39)
Social media addiction: What is the role of content in YouTube? - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28914072/)
Suicide on YouTube:Factors engaging viewers to a selection of suicide-themed videos - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34111162/)

Source-Medindia